XSLT Transformation (help) - xslt

Question

I newby to XSLT and having some trouble to solve this problem.
The input is coming from an XML Excel document and has this format :
<Row>
<Cell><Data ss:Type="String">ToE.3</Data></Cell>
<Cell ss:Index="15"><Data ss:Type="String">Maintain</Data></Cell>
<Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">3</Data></Cell>
<Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Other</Data></Cell>
<Cell ss:Index="131"><Data ss:Type="String">Windows 2003</Data></Cell>
<Cell><Data >Microsoft SQL Server 2005</Data></Cell>
</Row>
..more rows (note the excel sheet has 132 columns)
I need to convert this to a standard text file, something like (with the right column) separator :
Col1 Col2 Col3 ..To.. Col15 Col16 ..To.. Col131
ToE.3 Maintain 3 Windows 2003
The problem is how to insert the empty row values that are skipt with the Index attribute.
The transformation without the empty, index handling looks like :
<xsl:for-each select="Row">
<xsl:for-each select="Cell/Data">
<xsl:value-of select="current()"/>
<xsl:text>\</xsl:text>
</xsl:for-each>
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:for-each>
Some help would be warmly appreciated

Answer 1

step1: you need to declare output format, ie, "text" and not "xml"..
step2: you need to get rid of additional whitespace. use Strip-space with element='*', that means 'all'!
step3: you need to write header row first ie, col1, col2 etc..
so using template match select an element row that is first in your XML.. assuming that all the rows have same number of columns, you need to write "COL+ NUMBER" .. column numbers = no of cells you have in first row.
step4: if the cell is last then insert 'enter character'..
step5: call the generic function
step6: explaining generic function:
this function copies data under each cells separated by \. Only for the first row, we would be calling it manually, otherwise template match will take care of it.
Here is the code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="text"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:template name="Header" match="Row[not(preceding-sibling::Row)]">
<xsl:for-each select="Cell">
<xsl:value-of select="'Col'"/>
<xsl:value-of select="position()"/>
<xsl:if test="position()!=last()">
<xsl:value-of select="'\'"/>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
<xsl:call-template name="CopyData"/>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template name="CopyData" match="Row">
<xsl:for-each select="Cell">
<xsl:for-each select="Data">
<xsl:apply-templates select="."/>
</xsl:for-each>
<xsl:if test="position()!=last()">
<xsl:value-of select="'\'"/>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
corresponding sample output:
Col1\Col2\Col3\Col4\Col5\Col6
ToE.3\Maintain\3\Other\Windows 2003\Microsoft SQL Server 2005
ToE.3\Maintain\3\Other\Windows 2003\Microsoft SQL Server 2005

Answer 2

This is tricky because as you are seeing Excel skips columns in which no data appears, then provides an ss:Index attribute for the subsequent non-blank column. You have to reconstruct the "missing" cell positions on your own. That is, if you wish to retain the original column position like "15" or "131" in your example, with intervening blanks.
Agreeing with InfantProgrammer above, but suggest you'd add some logic to the "CopyData" template above to (a) determine the number of missing cells, then (b) call a recursive named template to write 'em to output.
<xsl:template name="WriteBlanks">
<xsl:param name="Count" select="0"/>
<xsl:if test="Count > 0">
<xsl:value-of select="'\'"/>
<xsl:call-template name="WriteBlanks">
<xsl:with-param name="Count" select="$Count - 1"/>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
You could do something similar to generate the first row of column headers.
Given the simplicity of your need to just write backslash characters as column separator, a more succinct approach of just creating a long string of them, then lopping off however many are needed with XPath substring() could be in reach. However a recursive template may be suitable for more complex outputs.