XSLT, 2nd Edition

Another Example

We’ve pretty much covered the <xsl:sort> element at this point. To add another wrinkle to our example, we’ll change the stylesheet so the xsl:sort element acts upon a subset of the addresses, and then sorts that subset. We’ll sort only the addresses from states that start with the letter M. As you’d expect, we’ll do this magic with an XPath expression that limits the elements to be sorted:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- namesorter4.xsl -->
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" 
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

  <xsl:output method="text" indent="no"/>

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:for-each select="addressbook/address[starts-with(state, 'M')]">
      <xsl:sort select="name/last-name"/>
      <xsl:sort select="name/first-name"/>
      <xsl:if test="name/title">
        <xsl:value-of select="name/title"/>
        <xsl:text> </xsl:text>
      </xsl:if>
      <xsl:value-of select="name/first-name"/>
      <xsl:text> </xsl:text>
      <xsl:value-of select="name/last-name"/>
      <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
      <xsl:value-of select="street"/>
      <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
      <xsl:value-of select="city"/>
      <xsl:text>, </xsl:text>
      <xsl:value-of select="state"/>
      <xsl:text>  </xsl:text>
      <xsl:value-of select="zip"/>
      <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
      <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Here are the results—only those addresses from states beginning with the letter M, sorted by first name within last name:

Ms. Natalie Attired 707 Breitling Way Winter Harbor, ME 00218 Harry Backstayge 283 First Avenue Skunk Haven, MA 02718 ...