How to implement Carriage return in XSLT

Question

I want to implement carriage return within xslt. The problem is I have a varible: Step 1 = Value 1 breaktag Step 2 = Value 2 as a string and would like to appear as

Step 1 = Value 1

Step 2 = Value 2

in the HTML form but I am getting the br tag on the page.Any good ways of implementing a line feed/carriage return in xsl would be appreciated

See this very similar question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/723226/producing-a-new-line-in-xslt — Coder, Nov 30 '15 at 18:43

score 44 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 19 '09 at 09:28

44

As an alternative to

<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>

you could use

<xsl:text>&#10;</xsl:text> <!-- newline character -->

or

<xsl:text>&#13;</xsl:text> <!-- carriage return character -->

in case you don't want to mess up your indentation

answered Jun 19 '09 at 09:28

Steef

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My string is in the database AB and when rendered it displays as is and not a line break...tried does not work.Works when hardcoded in xsl file but my values comes from db. – chugh97 Jun 19 '09 at 11:36
I think some more information is needed to find a solution to your problem. Could you describe in more detail how you are getting the string from the database and how you are applying the XSL? What is the format of the string in the database? Is it plain text? XML? – Steef Jun 19 '09 at 11:43

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered May 13 '14 at 13:37

9

This works for me, as carriage-return + life feed.

<xsl:text>&#xD;&#xA;</xsl:text>

The "
" string does not work.

answered May 13 '14 at 13:37

Adam Tauno Williams

196
2
6

2

This worked quite well when adding a `CRLF` within my XSLT. Validated with JEdit and Notepad++. – Carlos Aug 18 '15 at 06:09
This works embedded in a text element with BI Publisher Desktop – DaveStSomeWhere Oct 26 '15 at 19:43
It's likely the is not working based on which viewer you are using. It works for me with notepad++ or on linux command line. – MikeKulls May 08 '17 at 22:34

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 28 '21 at 09:29

The cleanest way I've found is to insert !ENTITY declarations at the top of the stylesheet for newline, tab, and other common text constructs. When having to insert a slew of formatting elements into your output this makes the transform sheet look much cleaner.

For example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [
    <!ENTITY nl "<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>">
]>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

  <xsl:template match="step">
    &nl;&nl;
    <xsl:apply-templates  />
  </xsl:template>
  ...
</xsl:stylesheet>

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 19 '09 at 09:21

3

use a simple carriage return in a xsl:text element

<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>

answered Jun 19 '09 at 09:21

Pierre

34,472
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and that is pretty annoying, when you've indented all your XML nicely, then you have to put this... – instanceof me Jun 19 '09 at 09:25
The string is held in the db and i tried adding but its printing the tag instead of getting a line break. – chugh97 Jun 19 '09 at 09:59

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered May 27 '14 at 17:39

2

I was looking for a nice solution to this, as many would prefer, without embedding escape sequences directly in the expressions, or having weird line breaks inside of a variable. I found a hybrid of both this approaches actually works, by embedding a text node inside a variable like this:

<xsl:variable name="newline"><xsl:text>&#10;</xsl:text></xsl:variable>
<xsl:value select="concat(some_element, $newline)" />

Another nice side-affect of this is that you can pass in whatever newline you want, be it just LF, CR, or both CRLF.

--Daniel

answered May 27 '14 at 17:39

Daniel

29
1

General XSLT tip: instead of using `xsl:text` in your `xsl:variable`, use a `select` attribute instead. (Example: ``) This way you don't create an unnecessary result tree fragment. – Daniel Haley May 27 '14 at 17:53
Also, it might be good to note that you could also use `xsl:param` instead of `xsl:variable` so that you can pass the value of "newline" in at run time. – Daniel Haley May 27 '14 at 17:54

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 24 '10 at 13:51

2

Try this at the end of the line where you want the carriage return. It worked for me.

<xsl:text><![CDATA[<br />]]></xsl:text>

answered Nov 24 '10 at 13:51

Ken

29
1

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Jul 26 '13 at 16:58

Here is an approach that uses a recursive template, which looks for 
 in the string from the database and then outputs the substring before. If there is a substring after 
 remaining, then the template calls itself until there is nothing left. In case 
 is not present then the text is simply output.

Here is the template call (just replace @ActivityExtDescription with your database field):

<xsl:call-template name="MultilineTextOutput">
    <xsl:with-param name="text" select="@ActivityExtDescription" />
</xsl:call-template>

and here is the code for the template itself:

<xsl:template name="MultilineTextOutput">
<xsl:param name="text"/>
<xsl:choose>
    <xsl:when test="contains($text, '&#10;')">
        <xsl:variable name="text-before-first-break">
            <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($text, '&#10;')" />
        </xsl:variable>
        <xsl:variable name="text-after-first-break">
            <xsl:value-of select="substring-after($text, '&#10;')" />
        </xsl:variable>

        <xsl:if test="not($text-before-first-break = '')">
            <xsl:value-of select="$text-before-first-break" /><br />
        </xsl:if>

        <xsl:if test="not($text-after-first-break = '')">
            <xsl:call-template name="MultilineTextOutput">
                <xsl:with-param name="text" select="$text-after-first-break" />
            </xsl:call-template>
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:when>
    <xsl:otherwise>
        <xsl:value-of select="$text" /><br />
    </xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>

Works like a charm!!!

This is the only answer I've found that worked for formatting fields retrieved from a database as xml. — swilliams, Aug 07 '15 at 16:26

score -1 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 19 '09 at 09:23

-1

I believe that you can use the xsl:text tag for this, as in

<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>

Chances are that by putting the closing tag on a line of its own, the newline is part of the literal text and outputted as such.

answered Jun 19 '09 at 09:23

Frerich Raabe

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The string is held in the db and i tried adding but its printing the tag instead of getting a line break. – chugh97 Jun 19 '09 at 09:58

score -1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 19 '09 at 13:05

-1

I separated the values by Environment.NewLine and then used a pre tag in html to emulate the effect I was looking for

answered Jun 19 '09 at 13:05

chugh97

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score -1 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 07 '15 at 16:24

-1

This is the only solution that worked for me. Except I was replacing &#10; with \r\n

answered Jan 07 '15 at 16:24

Philip Radvan

9
1

How to implement Carriage return in XSLT

10 Answers10

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