XSL: Convert input xml to an attribute value

Question

How to convert an input XML to an attribute value of another XML using XSL?

Input XML:

<Order OrderNo="1" />

Output XML:

<NewXML Input="<Order OrderNo="1" />" />

I need the input XML to be converted as a string and stored in an attribute value in the output XML.

You want to do an XSLT transform. What have you tried? Tools like https://www.freeformatter.com/xsl-transformer.html might help you get started. — , Feb 13 '18 at 14:51
Your question is not entirely clear. What should the output XML look like exactly? And what part of the input XML do you want to see in it? — wasmachien, Feb 13 '18 at 14:53
@wasmachien - I have edited the previous post to show exactly how the output xml should look like — Stan, Feb 13 '18 at 17:20
@jdv - I have done other XSL conversions earlier, but i dont have a clue to convert the whole input XML to an attribute value of output XML. — Stan, Feb 13 '18 at 17:22
@Stan are you sure that's what you want? Because that is invalid XML. — wasmachien, Feb 13 '18 at 17:23
@wasmachien - Its not invalid. The whole input XML should be converted to a String and stored as a value in the attribute. — Stan, Feb 13 '18 at 17:26
Well, you will probably have to escape the attribute Strings, which will be part of the job of the transform. — , Feb 13 '18 at 17:30
Related: https://stackoverflow.com/q/1255372/1531971 This problem is going to be like using regexes, but with even more problems. — , Feb 13 '18 at 17:35
@Stan it is invalid, because quotes and <'s have to be escaped. But see my solution below and check if that works. — wasmachien, Feb 13 '18 at 17:45
@JDK - If you think this approach is going to leave us with issues then i would like to do this conversion through Java code. Converting through an XSL would have made my design better. Anyway, thanks Jdv and wasmachien for your help. — Stan, Feb 13 '18 at 17:47

wasmachien · Answer 1 · 2018-02-13T17:43:08.530

Converting an XML node to a string doesn't really make sense, and I'm pretty sure there is an easier way to do whatever you are trying to do. But here is a slightly dirty way to do it, which will convert elements and their attributes:

<?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" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes" />
  <xsl:template match="Order">
        <NewXML>
            <xsl:attribute name="Input">
              <xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="element-to-string"/>
            </xsl:attribute>
        </NewXML>
  </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="*" mode="element-to-string">
        <xsl:text>&lt;</xsl:text>
        <xsl:value-of select="name()"/>
        <xsl:for-each select="@*">
            <xsl:value-of select="concat(' ', name(), '=&quot;', ., '&quot;')"/>
        </xsl:for-each>     
        <xsl:text>&gt;</xsl:text>
    </xsl:template>

  </xsl:stylesheet>

This seems to be working in online converter. Let me test it in my system and will let you know. It will be awesome if it works. Thanks. — Stan, Feb 13 '18 at 17:50

XSL: Convert input xml to an attribute value

1 Answers1