How-to break a for-each loop in XSLT? - xslt

Question

How-to break a for-each loop in XSLT?

Answer 1

XSLT is written in a very functional style, and in this style there is no equivalent of a break statement. What you can do is something like this:
<xsl:for-each select="...nodes...">
<xsl:if test="...some condition...">
...body of loop...
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>
That way the for-each will still iterate through all the nodes, but the body of the loop will only be executed if the condition is true.

Answer 2

Put the condition for stopping the "loop" in the select attribute of the for-each element. For instance, to "break" after four elements:
<xsl:for-each select="nodes[position()<=4]">
To iterate up to but not including a node that satisfied some particular condition:
<xsl:for-each select="preceding-sibling::node[condition]">

Answer 3

XSLT isn't a procedural language; don't think of for-each as being a "loop" in the way you have a loop in Java. For-each is a way to apply a template to each of a bunch of items. It doesn't necessarily happen in a particular order, so you can't think of it as "apply this template to each of a bunch of items until such-and-such happens, then stop".
That said, you can use the select attribute to filter the results, so it becomes more like "apply a template to each of a bunch of items, but only if such-and-such is true of them".
If what you really want is "apply a template to each of a bunch of items, where such-and-such is true of them, but only to the first one this is true of", you can combine the select attribute with the position() function.

Answer 4

A "break" from the body of an <xsl:for-each> XSLT instruction cannot be specified using a syntactic construct, however it can be simulated.
Essentially two techniques are discussed:
Performing something inside the body of <xsl:for-each> only if a specific condition is satisfied. This can be improved if the condition can be specified in the select attribute of <xsl:for-each> -- in this case only the necessary nodes will be processed. See for example: https://stackoverflow.com/a/7532602/36305
Specifying the processing not using <xsl:for-each> but with recursion. There are many examples of recursive processing with XSLT. See the code at: https://fxsl.sf.net/
The second method has the benefit of being able to perform the exit immediately, contrasted with the first method having to still perform many "empty cycles" even after the exit-condition has been satisfied.

Answer 5

I had a similar situation and here is the code I had written. For logical reasons, I couldn't fit in the other conditions with condition01.
<xsl:for-each select="msxsl:node-set($DATA6)[condition01]">
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="not((condtion02 or condition03) and condition04)">
--body of for loop
</xsl:when>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:for-each>

Answer 6

Hello I kwow this is an old post but maybe it can help other developers. I have found a way to break a for each in XSLT it is not litteraly a break but if you see the code you will get it. As you know or not know you can use inline C# code in xslt. In this example i want to loop al the nodes and take the first NTE node with Value RC But if I get a node that differs from the NTE node i want to stop looking at the condition. So I set a global variable in C# code and I ask the value each time I go through a node:
<xsl:value-of select="userCSharp:SetStopForeach('true')" />
<xsl:for-each select="following-sibling::node()">
<xsl:if test="local-name()='NTE_NotesAndComments_3' and userCSharp:GetStopForeach()" >
<xsl:for-each select="NTE_4_CommentType">
<xsl:if test="(CE_0364_0_IdentifierSt)[text()="RC"]">
<ns0:RESULTAAT_COMMENTAAR>
<xsl:for-each select="../NTE_3_Comment">
<xsl:value-of select="./text()" />
</xsl:for-each>
</ns0:RESULTAAT_COMMENTAAR>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="local-name()='ORC_CommonOrder'" >
<xsl:value-of select="userCSharp:SetStopForeach('false')" />
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>
.....
<msxsl:script language="C#" implements-prefix="userCSharp">
<![CDATA[
public bool StopForeach=false;
public bool GetStopForeach() {
return StopForeach;
}
public string SetStopForeach(bool aValue) {
StopForeach=aValue;
return "";
}
]]>
</msxsl:script>