I'm trying out a sample of look-up tables in XSLT and am not able to get it to work
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="xml" />
<xsl:key name="classification-lookup" match="classification" use="id" />
<xsl:variable name="classification-top" select="document('')/*/classifications" />
<xsl:template match="BusinessListing">
<listing>
<id>
<xsl:value-of select="id" />
</id>
<xsl:apply-templates select="$classification-top">
<xsl:with-param name="curr-label" select="." />
</xsl:apply-templates>
</listing>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="classifications">
<xsl:param name="curr-label" />
<category>
<xsl:value-of select="key('classification-lookup', $curr-label/listingData/classifications/classificationId)/description" />
</category>
</xsl:template>
<classifications>
<classification>
<id>7981</id>
<description>Category1</description>
</classification>
<classification>
<id>7982</id>
<description>Category2</description>
</classification>
<classification>
<id>7983</id>
<description>Category3</description>
</classification>
<classification>
<id>7984</id>
<description>Category4</description>
</classification>
</classifications>
</xsl:stylesheet>
and the source is as below .
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<BusinessListings>
<BusinessListing>
<id>1593469</id>
<listingData>
<classifications>
<classificationId>7982</classificationId>
<classificationId>7983</classificationId>
</classifications>
</listingData>
</BusinessListing>
</BusinessListings>
In the result below , The category is empty but I need the Classification Id from the source to be matched with the id in the classification tag and the category generated .
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<listing>
<id>1593469</id> -- Empty I need the Category2 and Category3 here
<category/>
</listing>
I know that I may be wide off mark but I've just started off with XSLT and referred the sample here http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-xsltip.html . Thanks for the help .
Your XSLT stylesheet contains an error -- according to spec, any child-element of xsl:stylesheet (aka top-level element) must be in a non-null namespace:
"*In addition, the xsl:stylesheet
element may contain any element not
from the XSLT namespace, provided that
the expanded-name of the element has a
non-null namespace URI. "
If the XSLT processor you are using doesn't raise an error, then it is non-compliant and buggy and shouldn't be used. Find and use a compliant XSLT processor (I am using .NET XslCompiledTransform, Saxon 6.5.5, ..., etc).
There are other errors, too.
Solution:
Define a new namespace with prefix (say) "x:":
Change the embedded <classifications> to <x:classifications> -- now this conforms to the Spec.
Perform more changes to the code until you get this transformation:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:x="my:x" exclude-result-prefixes="x">
<xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:key name="classification-lookup" match="classification"
use="id" />
<xsl:template match="BusinessListing">
<listing>
<id>
<xsl:value-of select="id" />
</id>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</listing>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="classificationId">
<xsl:variable name="vCur" select="."/>
<xsl:for-each select="document('')">
<category>
<xsl:value-of select=
"key('classification-lookup',$vCur)/description" />
</category>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="text()"/>
<x:classifications>
<classification>
<id>7981</id>
<description>Category1</description>
</classification>
<classification>
<id>7982</id>
<description>Category2</description>
</classification>
<classification>
<id>7983</id>
<description>Category3</description>
</classification>
<classification>
<id>7984</id>
<description>Category4</description>
</classification>
</x:classifications>
</xsl:stylesheet>
.4. In the above code notice the line: <xsl:for-each select="document('')"> .
The purpose of this is to make the stylesheet the current document. The key() function operates only on the current document and if you want the embedded classification elements to be indexed and used, you must change the current document (usually in this way). In XSLT 2.0 the key() function allows a 3rd argument which is a node from the document whose index should be used.
When this transformation is applied to the provided XML document:
<BusinessListings>
<BusinessListing>
<id>1593469</id>
<listingData>
<classifications>
<classificationId>7982</classificationId>
<classificationId>7983</classificationId>
</classifications>
</listingData>
</BusinessListing>
</BusinessListings>
the wanted, correct result is produced:
<listing>
<id>1593469</id>
<category>Category2</category>
<category>Category3</category>
</listing>
Related
I'm trying to create a standard-use XSLT that will perform a given task based upon a user-provided XPATH expression as an XSLT parameter.
That is, I need something like this:
<xsl:template match="$paramContainingXPATH">
<!-- perform the task on the node(s) in the given xpath -->
</xsl:template>
For example, suppose I have some XML:
<xml>
<nodeA>whatever</nodeA>
<nodeB>whatever</nodeB>
<nodeC>whatever</nodeC>
<nodeD>whatever</nodeD>
<nodeE>whatever</nodeE>
</xml>
The XSLT needs to transform just a node or nodes matching a provided XPATH expression. So, if the xslt parameter is "/xml/nodeC", it processes nodeC. If the xslt parameter is "*[local-name() = 'nodeC' or local-name() = 'nodeE']", it processes nodeC and nodeE.
This should work for absolutely any XML message. That is, the XSLT cannot have any direct knowledge of the content of the XML. So, it could be a raw XML, or a SOAP Envelope.
I was guessing I might need to grab all the nodes matching the xpath, and then looping over them calling a named template, and using the standard identity template for all other nodes.
All advice is appreciated.
If you really need that feature with XSLT 1.0 or 2.0 then I think you should consider writing one stylesheet that takes that string parameter with the XPath expression and then simply generates the code of a second stylesheet where the XPath expression is used as a match pattern and the other needed templates like the identity template are included statically. Dynamic XPath evaluation is only available in XSLT 3.0 or in earlier versions as a proprietary extension mechanism.
You cannot match a template using a parameter - but you can traverse the tree and compare the path of each node with the given path. Here's a simple example:
XSLT 1.0
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:param name="path" select="'/world/America/USA/California'"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<root>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
</root>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:variable name="path-to-me">
<xsl:for-each select="ancestor-or-self::node()">
<xsl:value-of select="name()" />
<xsl:if test="position()!=last()">
<xsl:text>/</xsl:text>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:if test="$path=$path-to-me">
<xsl:call-template name="action"/>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template name="action">
<return>
<xsl:value-of select="." />
</return>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Applied to a slightly more ambitious test input of:
<world>
<Europe>
<Germany>1</Germany>
<France>2</France>
<Italy>3</Italy>
</Europe>
<America>
<USA>
<NewYork>4</NewYork>
<California>5</California>
</USA>
<Canada>6</Canada>
</America>
</world>
the result will be:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
<return>5</return>
</root>
This could be made more efficient by passing the accumulated path as a parameter of the recursive template, so that each node needs only to add its own name to the chain.
Note:
The given path must be absolute;
Predicates (including positional predicates) and attributes are not implemented in this. They probably could be, with a bit more effort;
Namespaces are ignored (I don't see how you could pass an XPath as a parameter and include namespaces anyway).
If your processor supports an evaluate() extension function, you could forgo the calculated text path and test for intersection instead.
Edit:
Here's an example using EXSLT dyn:evaluate() and set:intersection():
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:dyn="http://exslt.org/dynamic"
xmlns:set="http://exslt.org/sets"
extension-element-prefixes="dyn set">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:param name="path" select="'/world/America/USA/California'"/>
<xsl:variable name="path-set" select="dyn:evaluate($path)" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<root>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
</root>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:if test="set:intersection(. , $path-set)">
<xsl:call-template name="action"/>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template name="action">
<return>
<xsl:value-of select="." />
</return>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Note that this will also work with with paths like:
/world/America/USA/*[2]
//California
and many others that the text comparison method could not accommodate.
I'm sending the element name as a param to the XSLT
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" version="2.0">
<xsl:output method="xml"/>
<xsl:param name="user"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:call-template name="generic" />
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template name="generic">
<count><xsl:value-of select="count(.//*[local-name()=$user])"/></count>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
I hope this could help!
Considering this XML,
XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<items>
<book>
<title>doublebell</title>
<count>available</count>
</book>
<phone>
<brand>nokia</brand>
<model></model>
</phone>
</items>
Mapping Criteria while writing XSLT:
show the newbook/newtitle only if a value is present in input.
show the newbook/newcount only if a value is present in input.
show the newphone/newbrand only if a value is present in input.
show the newphone/newmodel only if a value is present in input.
XSLT:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"
indent="yes" />
<xsl:variable name="book" select="items/book" />
<xsl:variable name="phone" select="items/phone" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<items>
<newbook>
<xsl:if test="$book/title!=''">
<newtitle>
<xsl:value-of select="$book/title" />
</newtitle>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="$book/count!=''">
<newcount>
<xsl:value-of select="$book/count" />
</newcount>
</xsl:if>
</newbook>
<xsl:if test="$phone/brand!='' or $phone/model!=''"> <!-- not sure if this condition is required for the above mapping criteria -->
<newphone>
<xsl:if test="$phone/brand!=''">
<newbrand>
<xsl:value-of select="$phone/brand" />
</newbrand>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="$phone/model!=''">
<newmodel>
<xsl:value-of select="$phone/model" />
</newmodel>
</xsl:if>
</newphone>
</xsl:if>
</items>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
This is my concern:- In my actual XSLT, I have almost 70 conditions like
this, and everytime the XPath search is made twice [or thrice.. ] for
each condition [ for eg: <xsl:if test="$phone/brand!=''"> and <xsl:value-of select="$phone/brand" /> and outer if condition].
Is this much performance overhead? I don't feel it when I ran my application.
I like to hear from experienced people if this is correct way of writing the XSLT. Do I need to save the path in a variable and reuse it as done for $book
and $phone ? In such a case there will be 70+variables just to hold this.
You can approach this quite differently using templates. If you define a template that matches any element whose content is empty and does nothing:
<xsl:template match="*[. = '']" />
or possibly use normalize-space() if you want to consider elements to be empty if they contain only whitespace
<xsl:template match="*[not(normalize-space())]" />
Now with this in place add templates for the elements you are interested in
<xsl:template match="book">
<newbook><xsl:apply-templates /></newbook>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="title">
<newtitle><xsl:apply-templates /></newtitle>
</xsl:template>
and so on. Now the book template will create a newbook element and go on to process its children. When it gets to the title it will have two different templates to choose from and will pick the "most specific" match. If the title is empty then the *[. = ''] template will win and nothing will be output, only if the title is non-empty will it create a newtitle element.
This way you let the template matcher do most of the work for you, you don't need any explicit conditional checks using xsl:if.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"
indent="yes" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<items><xsl:apply-templates select="items/*" /></items>
</xsl:template>
<!-- ignore empty elements -->
<xsl:template match="*[not(normalize-space())]" />
<xsl:template match="book">
<newbook><xsl:apply-templates /></newbook>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="title">
<newtitle><xsl:apply-templates /></newtitle>
</xsl:template>
<!-- and so on with similar templates for the other elements -->
</xsl:stylesheet>
Building on Ian's answer, you can also make a generic template that will create the "new" elements for you without having to specify each one individually. That would look like the below:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<items><xsl:apply-templates select="items/*" /></items>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="*[not(normalize-space())]" />
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:element name="{concat('new',name())}">
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:element>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
That last template just rebuilds the element by concatenating the word "new" to the front of it.
I have a scenario where the input(source) xml is having an element which contains a valid well formed xml as string. I am trying to write an xslt that would give me the text value of that desired element which contains the payload xml. In essence, output should only be text of the element that contains it. Here is what I am trying, am I missing something obvious here. I am using xslt 1.0
Thanks.
Input xml:
<BatchOrders xmlns="http://Microsoft.ABCD.OracleDB/STMT">
<BatchOrdersRECORD>
<BatchOrdersRECORD>
<ActualPayload>
<PersonName>
<PersonGivenName>CaptainJack</PersonGivenName>
<PersonMiddleName>Walter</PersonMiddleName>
<PersonSurName>Sparrow</PersonSurName>
<PersonNameSuffixText>Sr.</PersonNameSuffixText>
</PersonName>
</ActualPayload>
</BatchOrdersRECORD>
</BatchOrdersRECORD>
</BatchOrders>
Xslt:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl"
>
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="text()|#*" name="sourcecopy" mode="xml-to-string">
<xsl:value-of select="*"/>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template name="xml-to-string-called-template">
<xsl:param name ="param1">
<xsl:element name ="DestPayload">
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping ="yes"><![CDATA[</xsl:text>
<xsl:call-template name ="sourcecopy"/>
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping ="yes">]]></xsl:text>
</xsl:element>
</xsl:param>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Desired Output:
<PersonName>
<PersonGivenName>CaptainJack</PersonGivenName>
<PersonMiddleName>Walter</PersonMiddleName>
<PersonSurName>Sparrow</PersonSurName>
<PersonNameSuffixText>Sr.</PersonNameSuffixText>
</PersonName>
Do you really need the mode="xml-to-string"?
Change
<xsl:template match="text()|#*" name="sourcecopy" mode="xml-to-string">
<xsl:value-of select="*"/>
</xsl:template>
to
<xsl:template match="text()|#*" name="sourcecopy">
<xsl:value-of select="." disable-output-escaping ="yes"/>
</xsl:template>
Would this template suffice?
The requirement is to find the duplicate element(BaseName) in XML and marked the parent element(Account) with isDuplicate attribute. The XSL is working correctly when the input XML RootElement has no namespaces. When the root element has namespace then I get empty object. I am not sure why the namespace is causing XSL to generate empty output. Any help to get the right output would be greatly appreciated.`
Input XML WITH NAMESPACE
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<objects xmlns="urn:s.sexmaple.com" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Account>
<Id>001A00F</Id>
<RecordTypeId>012A00</RecordTypeId>
<BaseName>EFGH</BaseName>
</Account>
<Account>
<Id>001A0</Id>
<RecordTypeId>012A0</RecordTypeId>
<BaseName>ABCD</BaseName>
</Account>
<Account>
<Id>001A</Id>
<RecordTypeId>012A</RecordTypeId>
<BaseName>ABCD</BaseName>
</Account>
</objects>
XSL
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="2.0">
<xsl:output method="xml"
version="1.0"
encoding="UTF-8"
indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*" />
<xsl:template match="node()|#*">
<xsl:copy copy-namespaces="no">
<xsl:apply-templates select="node()|#*" />
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:variable name="Accounts">
<objects>
<xsl:for-each select="//Account">
<xsl:sort select="BaseName" />
<xsl:apply-templates select="." />
</xsl:for-each>
</objects>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="unqentity">
<objects>
<xsl:for-each select="$Accounts/objects/Account">
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="not(following-sibling::Account/BaseName=./BaseName) and not(preceding-sibling::Account/BaseName=./BaseName) ">
<xsl:copy-of select="." />
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<Account>
<xsl:attribute name="isDuplicate">yes</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:for-each select="child::*">
<xsl:element name="{name()}">
<xsl:copy-of select="#*|node()" />
</xsl:element>
</xsl:for-each>
</Account>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:for-each>
</objects>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:copy-of select="$unqentity" />
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Output XML WHEN INPUT XML HAS NAMESPACE
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<objects/>
Output XML when Input has no Namespaces
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<objects>
<Account>
<Id>001A00F</Id>
<RecordTypeId>012A00</RecordTypeId>
<BaseName>EFGH</BaseName>
</Account>
<Account isDuplicate="yes">
<Id>001A0</Id>
<RecordTypeId>012A0</RecordTypeId>
<BaseName>ABCD</BaseName>
</Account>
<Account isDuplicate="yes">
<Id>001A</Id>
<RecordTypeId>012A</RecordTypeId>
<BaseName>ABCD</BaseName>
</Account>
</objects>
When you have a namespace, it means the element within the namespace is not the same as an element without a namespace (or indeed an element in a different name space).
This means when you do this in your XSLT...
<xsl:for-each select="//Account">
You are looking for an Account element with no namespace, and so it will not match the Account element in your source XML, which is in the amusingly titled "urn:s.sexmaple.com" (which I suspect is a misspelling)
As you are using XSLT2.0 though, there is a simple way to get around this, by specifying a default namespace for any xpath expressions, using the xpath-default-namespace. Normally, this may be enough, but you have slightly complicated matters by creating new elements within a variable, which you then later try to select.
<xsl:for-each select="$Accounts/objects/Account">
This means when you create the objects and Account elements in the $Accounts variable, they will need to be part of the namespace too.
To cut to the chase, this is what your xsl:stylesheet element needs to look like
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="2.0"
xmlns="urn:s.sexmaple.com"
xpath-default-namespace="urn:s.sexmaple.com">
So, the xpath-default-namespace="urn:s.sexmaple.com" is used to match elements in your source XML, whilst the xmlns="urn:s.sexmaple.com" is used to ensure the elements you create in the variable have this namespace and can be matched later on.
Having said all that, you have rather over-complicated your whole XSLT. Are you simply trying to add an IsDuplicate attribute to Account elements with the same BaseName? Well, create a key to look up duplicates, like so
<xsl:key name="account" match="Account" use="BaseName" />
Then you can look up duplicates like so:
<xsl:if test="key('account', BaseName)[2]">
<xsl:attribute name="isDuplicate">Yes</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:if>
Try this XSLT, which should give the same results
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xpath-default-namespace="urn:s.sexmaple.com">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:key name="account" match="Account" use="BaseName" />
<xsl:template match="Account">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:if test="key('account', BaseName)[2]">
<xsl:attribute name="isDuplicate">Yes</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:apply-templates select="#*|node()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="#*|node()">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="#*|node()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Note how this only needs to use xpath-default-namespace as it is not creating whole new elements, just copying existing ones (which get their namespace copied across too).
The reason your input XML without a namespace works were the one with a namespace doesn't, isn't because of the input XML, but because of the XSLT stylesheet.
When your XML file has a default namespace, that namespace will need to be declared in the stylesheet itself.
For example, with the following XML:
<test xmlns="test.xml.schema">
<element>Content</element>
</test>
When I apply the following XSLT:
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="2.0">
<xsl:template match="/">
<out>
<namespace>None</namespace>
<xsl:apply-templates />
</out>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="test">
<test out="True">hello</test>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="*"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>
The output is just:
<out><namespace>None</namespace></out>
The <xsl:template match="test"> can't match on the test element in the input xml, as it is actually test.xml.schema:test while the match in the stylesheet, with no namespace is actually :test. Thus no match is possible.
However, when we just add a namespace for the input document adn modify the template, like so:
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:t="test.xml.schema" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="2.0">
<xsl:template match="/">
<out>
<namespace>test.xml.schema</namespace>
<xsl:apply-templates />
</out>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="t:test">
<test out="True">hello</test>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="*"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>
The output becomes:
<out xmlns:t="test.xml.schema">
<namespace>test.xml.schema</namespace>
<test out="True">hello</test>
</out>
Its important to note that the namespace abbreviation in the input document and XSL don't need to be the same (eg. blank vs. "t"), but the namespaces themselfs do: (e.g both blank and "t" must be bound to test.xml.schema).
Also note, that using a default namespace in XSLT can be fraught with issues. So its best to use declared namespaces in XSLT.
<choices>
<sic />
<corr />
<reg />
<orig />
</choices>
<choice>
<corr>Red</corr>
<sic>Blue</sic>
<choice>
I want to select the first element in <choice> whose name matches the name of any element in <choices>.
If name(node-set) returned a list of names instead of only the name of the first node, I could use
select="choice/*[name() = name(choices/*)][1]"
But it doesn't (at least not in 1.0), so instead I join the names together in a string and use contains():
<xsl:variable name="choices.str">
<xsl:for-each select="choices/*">
<xsl:text> </xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="concat(name(),' ')"/>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:apply-templates select="choice/*[contains($choices.str,name())][1]"/>
and get what I want:
Red, the value of <corr>
Is there a more straightforward way?
I. Use this XPath 2.0 one-liner:
/*/choice/*[name() = /*/choices/*/name()][1]
When this XPath expression is evaluated against the following XML document (the provided one, but corrected to become a well-formed XML document):
<t>
<choices>
<sic />
<corr />
<reg />
<orig />
</choices>
<choice>
<corr>Red</corr>
<sic>Blue</sic>
</choice>
</t>
the correct element is selected:
<corr>Red</corr>
II. XSLT 1.0 (no keys!):
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:variable name="vNames">
<xsl:for-each select="/*/choices/*">
<xsl:value-of select="concat(' ', name(), ' ')"/>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:copy-of select=
"/*/choice/*
[contains($vNames, concat(' ', name(), ' '))]
[1]"/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
When this transformation is applied on the same XML document (above), again the correct element is selected (and copied to the output):
<corr>Red</corr>
III. Using keys:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:key name="kChoiceByName" match="choice/*"
use="boolean(/*/choices/*[name()=name(current())])"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:copy-of select="/*/choice/*[key('kChoiceByName', true())][1]"/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
When this transformation is applied against the same XML document (above), the same correct result is produced:
<corr>Red</corr>
It is recommended to the reader to try to understand how this all "works" :)
You can use the key() function like this...
When this input document...
<t>
<choices>
<sic />
<corr />
<reg />
<orig />
</choices>
<choice>
<corr>Red</corr>
<sic>Blue</sic>
</choice>
</t>
...is supplied as input to this XSLT 1.0 style-sheet...
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="text"/>
<xsl:key name="kChoices" match="choices/*" use="name()" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:variable name="first-choice" select="(*/choice/*[key('kChoices',name())])[1]" />
<xsl:value-of select="$first-choice" />
<xsl:text>, the value of <</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="name( $first-choice)" />
<xsl:text>></xsl:text>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
...this output text is produced...
Red, the value of <corr>
XSLT 2.0 Aside
In XSLT 2.0, you would be able to use the following alternatives for the computation of the $first-choice variable...
Option 1:
(*/choice/*[for $c in . return ../../choices/*[name()=name($c)]])[1]
Option 2:
(*/choice/*[some $c in ../../choices/* satisfies name($c)=name()])[1]