Name

last() Function — Returns the position of the last node in the current context. This function is useful for defining templates for the last occurrence of a given element or for testing if a given node is the last in the node-set to which it belongs.

Synopsis

number last(
               )

Inputs

None.

Output

A number equal to the number of nodes in the current context. For example, if the current context contains 12 <li> nodes, last() returns 12.

Defined in

XPath section 4.1, Node Set Functions.

Example

We’ll use the last() function to handle the last item in a list in a special way. Here’s the XML document we’ll use:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<list>
  <title>A few of my favorite albums</title>
  <listitem>A Love Supreme</listitem>
  <listitem>Beat Crazy</listitem>
  <listitem>Here Come the Warm Jets</listitem>
  <listitem>Kind of Blue</listitem>
  <listitem>London Calling</listitem>
  <listitem>Remain in Light</listitem>
  <listitem>The Joshua Tree</listitem>
  <listitem>The Indestructible Beat of Soweto</listitem>
</list>

Here is the stylesheet that handles the last <listitem> in the list differently:

<?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output method="html"/> <xsl:template match="/"> <html> <head> <title> <xsl:value-of select="/list/title"/> </title> </head> <body> <h1> <xsl:value-of select="/list/title"/> </h1> <ul> <xsl:for-each select="/list/listitem"> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="position()=last()"> <li><b>Last, but not least: </b><xsl:value-of select="."/></li> ...

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