Whitespace text manipulation - xslt

I have the following XML generated:
<InvoiceStreet>Rod House Rods Way Euro Industrial Estate</InvoiceStreet>
This contains white-space, I'd like to use xslt to transform it to the following:
<AddressLine>Rod House Rods Way</AddressLine>
<AddressLine>Euro Industrial Estate</AddressLine>
At the moment I'm only able to output it like so:
<AddressLine>Rod House Rods Way
Euro Industrial Estate</AddressLine>
Is there a way to do this using XSLT?
Edit
Here is what I currently have:
<Address>
<AddressLine>
<xsl:value-of select="/*/*/*/*/*/xsales:DeliveryStreet" />
</AddressLine>
</Address>

From the output that you posted, it appears that the input has the components of the <xsales:DeliveryAddress> address separated by a line-feed character.
If so, you can split xsales:DeliveryAddress on line feeds and put each line in it's own <AddressLine> using a recursive template that looks for a line-feed character, creates a new <AddressLine> for content before the line-feed and then processes the text after it with a subsequent call to the template:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsales="xsales"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:mailplus="http://api.mailplus.nl/rss/mailplus/">
<xsl:output method="html" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:param name="ItemsToShow" select="2"/>
<xsl:param name="ShowItemDetails"/>
<xsl:param name="ShowItemDate"/>
<xsl:param name="Locale"/>
<xsl:param name="Target"/>
<xsl:template match="rss">
<Address>
<xsl:call-template name="AddressLines">
<xsl:with-param name="txt"
select="/*/*/*/*/*/xsales:DeliveryStreet"/>
</xsl:call-template>
</Address>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template name="AddressLines">
<xsl:param name="txt"/>
<!--default value for delimiter to use line-feed character -->
<xsl:param name="delimiter" select="'
'"/>
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="contains($txt, $delimiter)">
<AddressLine>
<xsl:value-of select="normalize-space(
substring-before($txt,
$delimiter))"/>
</AddressLine>
<xsl:call-template name="AddressLines">
<xsl:with-param name="txt"
select="substring-after($txt,
$delimiter)"/>
<xsl:with-param name="delimiter" select="$delimiter"/>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<!--filter out whitespace-only lines(from trailing line feeds)-->
<xsl:if test="normalize-space($txt)">
<AddressLine>
<xsl:value-of select="$txt"/>
</AddressLine>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Use substring Function, try using this piece of code snippet instead:
<Address>
<AddressLine>
<xsl:value-of select="substring(/*/*/*/*/*/xsales:DeliveryStreet,0,18)" />
</AddressLine>
<AddressLine>
<xsl:value-of select="substring(/*/*/*/*/*/xsales:DeliveryStreet,19,22)" />
</AddressLine>
</Address>
Better Approach
Get the length of the complete address. e.g. the length is 41 for the above provided sample string.
<xsl:variable name="addressLength" select="string-length(/*/*/*/*/*/xsales:DeliveryStreet)" />
Divide the length by 2 and truncate the floating part, i.e. you will get 20
<xsl:variable name="splitLength" select="$addressLength / 2" />
Now apply the substring function from zero (0) to splitLength variable
substring(/*/*/*/*/*/xsales:DeliveryStreet, 0, $splitLength)
e.g. you will get the output as "Rod House Rods Way E"
Again apply the substring function upto last occurance of space using LastIndexOf template.
e.g. you will get the desired output as "Rod House Rods Way"
For LastIndexOf template approach, you can refer to this post, XSLT: Finding last occurance in a string
Hope this will solve your problem for dynamic addresses, Cheers!

Related

Varying amount of iterations in XSL recursive loop within a for loop

I'm generating a CSV file from an XML using XSL. The XML contains Main elements with child elements Tags, which in turn contain varying amounts of child elements Tag. A part of the XML looks for example like this:
<Main>
<Tags>
<Tag>tag1</Tag>
<Tag>tag2</Tag>
<Tag>tag3</Tag>
</Tags>
</Main>
<Main>
<Tags>
<Tag>tag1</Tag>
<Tag>tag2</Tag>
<Tag>tag3</Tag>
<Tag>tag4</Tag>
<Tag>tag5</Tag>
<Tag>tag6</Tag>
</Tags>
</Main>
In the XSL I have a for each loop that goes through all my Main elements of my XML file. I want to print the values for all the Tag elements. I do this in another for-each loop which is inside the major loop. However, I always want to iterate 10 times, regardless of the amount of Tag elements. I want to print some text in each of the remaining iterations when I have exceeded the amount of printable Tag.
This is the output I'm after:
tag1,tag2,tag3,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,
tag1,tag2,tag3,tag4,tag5,tag6,1,1,1,1,
After the Tag for each loop, I'm calling a template, providing a variable with the amount of Tag in Tags. I then want the template to call itself recursively until it has done the varying amount of remaining iterations for the Tag elements of the current Main element. The amount of Tag elements changes with each Main iteration, which I suspect is a problem in my current solution (which causes my transformation software, Notepad++ with XML Tools, to crash):
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:for-each select="Main">
<xsl:for-each select="Tags/Tag">
<xsl:value-of select="Tag"/>
<xsl:text>,</xsl:text>
</xsl:for-each>
<xsl:call-template name="repeatable">
<xsl:with-param name="tagamount" select="count(Tags/*)"/>
</xsl:call-template>
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template name="repeatable">
<xsl:param name="tagamount"/>
<xsl:param name="index" select="0" />
<xsl:text>1,</xsl:text>
<xsl:if test="not($index = 10-$tagamount)">
<xsl:call-template name="repeatable">
<xsl:with-param name="index" select="$index + 1" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
Does anyone have any idea if it's possible to do this type of varying iteration, or am I out of luck?
Edit:
I managed to solve it. The problem was I had forgotten to pass on the variable tagamount with each recursive call. See my solution further below.
I couldn't wrap my head around your code. How about something simpler?
<?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" encoding="UTF-8"/>
<xsl:variable name="sep" select="','"/>
<xsl:variable name="LF" select="'
'"/>
<xsl:variable name="filler" select="'1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10'"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:for-each select="rt/Main/Tags">
<xsl:for-each select="Tag">
<xsl:value-of select="concat(., $sep)"/>
</xsl:for-each>
<xsl:value-of select="substring($filler, 2*count(Tag)+1)"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$LF"/>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Note:
1. Your XML is missing a root element: I am using "rt" as a placeholder.
2. For testing purposes, I have changed "1,1,1,..." into "1,2.3...".
Here is one way to do it.
This XSLT stylesheet:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="text"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<!-- Sets the number of iterations per Tags element. -->
<xsl:variable name="maximum" select="10"/>
<!-- Matches all the Tags elements and calls a recursive template, intializing the count to 1. -->
<xsl:template match="//Tags">
<xsl:call-template name="output-tags">
<xsl:with-param name="count" select="1"/>
</xsl:call-template>
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>
<!-- A recursive template that will repeat itself until its count reaches the maximum value.
If the count is equal to or less then the number of Tag elements inside the current Tags
element, then find the Tag element in the count position and print its value. Otherwise,
print 1. -->
<xsl:template name="output-tags">
<xsl:param name="count"/>
<xsl:if test="$count <= $maximum">
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$count <= count(Tag)">
<xsl:value-of select="Tag[count(preceding-sibling::Tag) = $count - 1]"/>
<xsl:text>,</xsl:text>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:text>1,</xsl:text>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
<xsl:call-template name="output-tags">
<xsl:with-param name="count" select="$count + 1"/>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
produces the following output when applied to your example input XML:
tag1,tag2,tag3,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,
tag1,tag2,tag3,tag4,tag5,tag6,1,1,1,1,
Thanks for the answers!
I managed to solve it right after I posted. The problem was I had forgotten to send the tagamount variable with the recursive call. After adding it, it works. The repeatable template then looks like this:
<xsl:param name="tagamount"/>
<xsl:param name="index" select="0" />
<xsl:text>1,</xsl:text>
<xsl:if test="not($index = 10-$tagamount)">
<xsl:call-template name="repeatable">
<xsl:with-param name="tagamount" select="$tagamount"/> <-----------
<xsl:with-param name="index" select="$index + 1" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>

parsing string in xslt

I have following xml
<xml>
<xref>
is determined “in prescribed manner”
</xref>
</xml>
I want to see if we can process xslt 2 and return the following result
<xml>
<xref>
is
</xref>
<xref>
determined
</xref>
<xref>
“in prescribed manner”
</xref>
</xml>
I tried few options like replace the space and entities and then using for-each loop but not able to work it out. May be we can use tokenize function of xslt 2.0 but don't know how to use it. Any hint will be helpful.
# JimGarrison: Sorry, I couldn't resist. :-) This XSLT is definitely not elegant but it does (I assume) most of the job:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet
version="2.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes" />
<xsl:variable name="left_quote" select="'<'"/>
<xsl:variable name="right_quote" select="'>'"/>
<xsl:template name="protected_tokenize">
<xsl:param name="string"/>
<xsl:variable name="pattern" select="concat('^([^', $left_quote, ']+)(', $left_quote, '[^', $right_quote, ']*', $right_quote,')?(.*)')"/>
<xsl:analyze-string select="$string" regex="{$pattern}">
<xsl:matching-substring>
<!-- Handle the prefix of the string up to the first opening quote by "normal" tokenizing. -->
<xsl:variable name="prefix" select="concat(' ', normalize-space(regex-group(1)))"/>
<xsl:for-each select="tokenize(normalize-space($prefix), ' ')">
<xref>
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</xref>
</xsl:for-each>
<!-- Handle the text between the quotes by simply passing it through. -->
<xsl:variable name="protected_token" select="normalize-space(regex-group(2))"/>
<xsl:if test="$protected_token != ''">
<xref>
<xsl:value-of select="$protected_token"/>
</xref>
</xsl:if>
<!-- Handle the suffix of the string. This part may contained protected tokens again. So we do it recursively. -->
<xsl:variable name="suffix" select="normalize-space(regex-group(3))"/>
<xsl:if test="$suffix != ''">
<xsl:call-template name="protected_tokenize">
<xsl:with-param name="string" select="$suffix"/>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:matching-substring>
</xsl:analyze-string>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="*|#*">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="xref">
<xsl:call-template name="protected_tokenize">
<xsl:with-param name="string" select="text()"/>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Notes:
There is the general assumption that white space only serves as a token delimiter and need not be preserved.
“ and rdquo; seem to be invalid in XML although they are valid in HTML. In the XSLT there are variables defined holding the quote characters. They will have to be adapted once you find the right XML representation. You can also eliminate the variables and put the characters right into the regular expression pattern. It will be significantly simplified by this.
<xsl:analyze-string> does not allow a regular expression which may evaluate into an empty string. This comes as a little problem since either the prefix and/or the proteced token and/or the suffix may be empty. I take care of this by artificially adding a space at the beginning of the pattern which allows me to search for the prefix using + (at least one occurence) instead of * (zero or more occurences).

Split attribute characters and output them using XSLT 1.0

I am in need to transform the below coding using XSLT 1.0 based on the separators attributes given. The text should be separated based on the separators given:
Input:
<chapter xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
<math display="inline"><mfenced separators=", : . ;"><mn>1</mn><mtext>b</mtext><mo>%</mo><mi>d</mi><mi>e</mi></mfenced></math>
<math display="inline"><mfenced separators=", ;"><mi>a</mi><mi>b</mi><mi>c</mi><mi>d</mi><mi>e</mi></mfenced></math>
<math display="inline"><mfenced separators=", : . ; ; : . ;"><mi>a</mi><mi>b</mi><mi>c</mi><mi>d</mi><mi>e</mi></mfenced></math>
</chapter>
output required:
1,b:%.d;e
a,b;c;d;e
a,b:c.d;e
Also please note that if there are too many separator characters, the extra ones are ignored. If separator characters are given, but there are too few, the last one is repeated as necessary
I could not able to get the output only if the separator characters are lesser than the child elements.
XSLT 1.0 tried:
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
<xsl:template match="m:mfenced">
<xsl:variable name="text" select="#separators"/>
<xsl:for-each select="child::*">
<xsl:apply-templates/>
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="contains($text,' ')">
<xsl:variable name="attr" select="string-length(translate($text, ' ', ''))"/>
<xsl:variable name="ch" select="count(parent::*/child::*)-1"/>
<xsl:if test="$ch=$attr"><xsl:value-of select="substring($text,count(preceding-sibling::*)+position(),1)"/></xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="$ch gt $attr">
<xsl:if test="not(substring($text,count(preceding-sibling::*)+position(),1)='')"><xsl:value-of select="substring($text,count(preceding-sibling::*)+position(),1)"/></xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="(substring($text,count(preceding-sibling::*)+position(),1)='')"><xsl:value-of select="substring($text,count(preceding-sibling::*)+1,1)"/></xsl:if>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="$ch lt $attr and count(following-sibling::*)>0"><xsl:value-of select="substring($text,count(preceding-sibling::*)+position(),1)"/></xsl:if>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise><xsl:if test="count(following-sibling::*)>0"><xsl:value-of select="$text"/></xsl:if></xsl:otherwise></xsl:choose>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
The following solution is based on obtaining the position of each <m:mi> within the <m:fenced> elements to obtain the next operator to be outputted.
Note. I am assuming that the string length used to represent each operator is 1.
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
<xsl:output method="text" />
<!-- Ignore all text nodes (just for demo) -->
<xsl:template match="text()" />
<xsl:template match="m:mfenced">
<!-- Print children values and operators -->
<xsl:apply-templates select="*" mode="list-op">
<xsl:with-param name="separator-str" select="#separators" />
<xsl:with-param name="separator-len" select="string-length(#separators)" />
</xsl:apply-templates>
<!-- Print new line -->
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>
<!-- Last m:mi elements for each m:mfenced are just printed -->
<xsl:template match="*[last()]" mode="list-op">
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</xsl:template>
<!-- In this template we use the position() function to calculate the next
operator that is going to be outputted -->
<xsl:template match="*" mode="list-op">
<xsl:param name="separator-str" />
<!-- This parameter is not required, but allows us to cache
the length of the separators string instead of calculating it
for each m:mi element -->
<xsl:param name="separator-len" />
<!-- Print current value -->
<xsl:value-of select="." />
<!-- Calculate the separator position within the string -->
<xsl:variable name="string-position" select="2*position() - 1" />
<!-- Check if the position oveflows the position in the array, and
if it does, print the last separator in the string. -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$separator-len >= $string-position">
<xsl:value-of select="substring($separator-str, $string-position, 1)" />
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:value-of select="substring($separator-str, $separator-len)" />
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

how to apply space between data in xslt

xml
<block4>
<tag>
<name>50K</name>
<value>
0501/045788775099
Praveen // name will come
MENENDEZ Y PELAYOA CORUNA SPA // address will come
</value>
</tag>
</block4>
i have written a xslt for this above tag but i have facing a problem with replacing remaining length with space
the above value you can see in middle line praveen is there let us assume for this xml message praveen we recieved for another message we cam may be recieve Tom but maximum length is 35 so we need to caluclate the string name value remaining length we should replace with SPACE so i dunno how replace a space over there ...
xsl
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="text" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:for-each select ="block4/tag[name = '50K']">
<xsl:value-of select="concat(substring(value, 1, 5), ',',substring(substring- before(value,'
'),6), ',',substring-after(value,'
'))" />
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
EXpected OUPUT lIKE:
0501/,045788775099,praveen............................MENENDEZ Y PELAYOA CORUNA SPA
where dots represents space dont assume dots
i need space over there assume think praveen is 7 char and remaining 28 char should make space wantedly in xslt
Try using
<xsl:text> </xsl:text>
The space is between those tags.
For more info: XSLT Controlling Whitespace
let us assume for this xml message
praveen we recieved for another
message we cam may be recieve Tom but
maximum length is 35 so we need to
caluclate the string name value
remaining length we should replace
with SPACE so i dunno how replace a
space over there ...
Use:
substring(concat($vstr, $vBlanks35), 1, 35)
This evaluates to the result of concatenating $vstr ('Praveen') with $vBlanks35 (35 blanks) and then taking the starting 35 characters.
Here is a complete example:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="text"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:variable name="vstr" select="'Praveen'"/>
<xsl:variable name="vBlanks35" select=
"' '"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
"<xsl:value-of select=
"substring(concat($vstr, $vBlanks35), 1, 35)"/>"
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
when this transformation is applied on any XML document (not used), the wanted, correct result is produced:
"Praveen "
One (universal) way to add space in xml is to use the special xml attribute that preserves spaces:
<value xml:space="preserve">
your
values
here ...
</value>
Another method is to use XSL's preserve/strip space ...
You should use a XSLT version of SQL function RPAD:
<xsl:template name="rpad">
<xsl:param name="text" />
<xsl:param name="length" />
<xsl:param name="char" select="' '" />
<xsl:if test="$length > 0 and string-length($text) > 0">
<xsl:value-of select="$text" />
<xsl:call-template name="rpad">
<xsl:with-param name="text" select="$char" />
<xsl:with-param name="char" select="$char" />
<xsl:with-param name="length" select="$length - string-length($text)" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
Usage:
<xsl:call-template name="rpad">
<xsl:with-param name="text" select="'your string here'" />
<xsl:with-param name="length" select="35" />
</xsl:call-template>
Optionnally you may specify a char parameter for padding your string with a character other than space.

How to show a character n times in XSLT?

I have a template with a parameter. How can I insert a tab character n times?
n is the value of the parameter.
In XSLT 2.0:
<xsl:for-each select="1 to $count"> </xsl:for-each>
(Sadly though, I suspect that if you were using XSLT 2.0 you wouldn't need to ask the question).
Another technique often used with XSLT 1.0 is the hack:
<xsl:for-each select="//*[position() <= $count]"> </xsl:for-each>
which works provided the number of elements in your source document is greater than the number of tab characters you want to output.
Just call it recursively; output a tab, then call the same template again with n-1 passed in, if n > 1.
<xsl:template name="repeat">
<xsl:param name="output" />
<xsl:param name="count" />
<xsl:if test="$count > 0">
<xsl:value-of select="$output" />
<xsl:call-template name="repeat">
<xsl:with-param name="output" select="$output" />
<xsl:with-param name="count" select="$count - 1" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
As has been pointed out, this example will actually output a minimum of one. In my experience where the output is whitespace, it's usually needed. You can adapt the principle of a recursive template like this any way you see fit.
This seems the simplest and most flexible to me.
For XSLT 1.0 (or perhaps 1.1).
<xsl:variable name="count">10</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="repeat"><xsl:text> </xsl:text></xsl:variable>
<xsl:sequence select="string-join((for $i in 1 to $count return $repeat),'')"/>
Of course the count variable is where you assign your n parameter.
I used the variable repeat to hold the tab character, but you could just replace the $repeat with the tab character in single quotes in the sequence element. Note: This variable can be of a length greater than 1, which creates a whole bunch of possibilities.
It does not use recursion, so it won't run into a recursion limit.
I don't know the maximum value you can use for count, but I tested it up to 10,000.
Globally define a long enough array of tabs:
<xsl:variable name="TABS" select="' '" />
Then use like this:
<xsl:value-of select="fn:substring($TABS, 1, fn:number($COUNT))" />
(XSLT 1.0)
<xsl:template name="tabs">
<xsl:param name="n"/>
<xsl:if test="$n > 0"> <!-- When n = 0, output nothing. -->
<xsl:call-template name="tabs"> <!-- Recursive call: call same template... -->
<xsl:with-param name="n" select="$n - 1"/> <!-- ... for writing n - 1 tabs. -->
</xsl:call-template>
<xsl:text> </xsl:text> <!-- Add one tab character. -->
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
Example usage:
<xsl:call-template name="tabs">
<xsl:with-param name="n" select="3"/>
</xsl:call-template>
I've discovered an LGPL-licensed library for doing this called functx, as I was sure someone had to have already done this... This is a "standard library" type XSLT library, which contains a function called repeat-string. From the docs:
The functx:repeat-string function returns a string consisting of a given number of copies of $stringToRepeat concatenated together.
Where I use it like this in my code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:functx="http://www.functx.com">
<xsl:import href="../buildlib/functx-1.0.xsl"/>
<xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" />
<xsl:variable name="INDENT" select="' '" />
....
<xsl:template match="node()|#*">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="node()|#*" />
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="data-pusher-properties">
<xsl:for-each select="property">
<xsl:choose>
...
<xsl:when test="boolean(#value = '${pusher.notifications.server}')">
<xsl:value-of select="functx:repeat-string($INDENT, #indent)" />
<xsl:text>"</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="#name" />
<xsl:text>": </xsl:text>
<xsl:text>"</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="$pusher.notifications.email.server" />
<xsl:text>"\
</xsl:text>
</xsl:when>
...
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
So for printing a tab character n times, call it like this:
<xsl:value-of select="functx:repeat-string(' ', n)" />
I know this question is old, but I hope this can still help someone.
Documentation for the repeat-string function