XSLT, 2nd Edition

Name

[2.0] <xsl:perform-sort>

Sorts a sequence. The sequence to be sorted can be defined with the select attribute, or it can be constructed inside the <xsl:perform-sort> element itself.

Category

Instruction

Required Attributes

None.

Optional Attribute

select

An XPath expression that defines the items to be sorted. If the select attribute is present, the <xsl:perform-sort> element can only contain <xsl:sort> and <xsl:fallback> elements. In other words, with a select attribute, the <xsl:perform-sort> element is not allowed to construct a sequence of items because the select attribute has already specified one.

Content

<xsl:perform-sort> contains one or more <xsl:sort> elements, along with any number of <xsl:fallback> elements. If the select attribute is not defined, <xsl:perform-sort> can contain a sequence constructor. If there is no select attribute and the <xsl:perform-sort> element doesn’t create a sequence, the result is an empty sequence.

Appears in

Any XSLT element whose content model is a sequence constructor or any literal result element.

Defined in

XSLT section 13.2, “Creating a Sorted Sequence.”

Example

We’ll start with an <xsl:perform-sort> element that uses a select attribute to produce a sorted sequence. Here is our stylesheet:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- perform-sort4.xsl -->
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
  xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

  <xsl:output method="text"/>

  <xsl:variable name="vendorsInOrder" as="xs:string*">
 <xsl:perform-sort ...