check if there is any more node preceding in same section

Question

I've the below type of XML structure

<root>
    <Section>
     <A></A>
     <B></B>
     <A></A>
    </Section>
    <Section>
     <A></A>
     <B></B>
     <A></A>
    </section>
   </root>

Here under each section there are 2 tags namely A and B but also there are 2 A nodes, Here i want to check with XPATH(XSLT2.0) if there are any preceding A under same Section, when i used Preceding::A, it is selecting everything i.e. it is not checking if it is in the same section or in different, but it is checking if there is a preceding A, but i want to check for preceding A in same Section, please let me know how can i do this.

Thanks

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 31 '14 at 10:27

1

I think you simply want to check preceding-sibling::A.

answered Jul 31 '14 at 10:27

Martin Honnen

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1

doesn't this mean that there should be `A` just before the current `A`, without any other nodes(here `B`) in between? – user3872094 Jul 31 '14 at 10:44
1

No, `preceding-sibling::A` checks whether there is any `A` element on the preceding sibling axis. You might want to try to read an XPath tutorial: http://www.xmlplease.com/axis – Martin Honnen Jul 31 '14 at 10:46

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

If the A elements are all siblings then Martin's suggestion of preceding-sibling::A is the simplest one. Alternatively you can let the template matcher do the work for you if you define separate templates for the first and subsequent A elements

<xsl:template match="A[1]">
  <!-- fires for the first A in each section -->
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="A">
  <!-- fires for A elements other than the first one -->
</xsl:template>

If the A elements can be at different levels, e.g.

<root>
 <Section>
  <A></A>
  <B></B>
  <A></A>
 </Section>
 <Section>
  <A></A>
  <B><A/></B>
  <C><A></A></C>
 </Section>
</root>

then you will need to be a bit more creative with the filtering. In "document order" a child element is considered to be after its parent so you could do something like

preceding::A[. >> current()/ancestor::Section[1]]

(i.e. all the preceding A elements that follow the current node's nearest Section ancestor in document order).

check if there is any more node preceding in same section

2 Answers2