How to use XSLT to create distinct values

user_237112 0
Viewed 105176

I have XML like this:

<items>
  <item>
    <products>
      <product>laptop</product>
      <product>charger</product>
    </products>
  </item>
  <item>
    <products>
      <product>laptop</product>
      <product>headphones</product>  
    </products>  
  </item>
</items>

I want it to output like

laptop
charger
headphones

I was trying to use distinct-values() but I guess i m doing something wrong. Can anyone tell me how to achieve this using distinct-values()? Thanks.

<xsl:template match="/">            
  <xsl:for-each select="//products/product/text()">
    <li>
      <xsl:value-of select="distinct-values(.)"/>
    </li>               
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

but its giving me output like this:

<li>laptop</li>
<li>charger</li>
<li>laptop></li>
<li>headphones</li>
xslt
6 Answers

An XSLT 1.0 solution that uses key and the generate-id() function to get distinct values:

<?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:key name="product" match="/items/item/products/product/text()" use="." />

<xsl:template match="/">

  <xsl:for-each select="/items/item/products/product/text()[generate-id()
                                       = generate-id(key('product',.)[1])]">
    <li>
      <xsl:value-of select="."/>
    </li>
  </xsl:for-each>

</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>
Mads_Hansen_144190

You don't want "output (distinct-values)", but rather "for-each (distinct-values)":

<xsl:template match="/">              
  <xsl:for-each select="distinct-values(/items/item/products/product/text())">
    <li>
      <xsl:value-of select="."/>
    </li>
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
Tomalak_187710

distinct-values(//product/text())

user_181570

I found that you can do what you want with XSLT 1.0 without generate-id() and key() functions.

Here is Microsoft-specific solution (.NET's XslCompiledTransform class, or MSXSLT.exe or Microsoft platfocm COM-objects).

It is based on this answer. You can copy sorted node set to variable ($sorted-products in the stylesheet below), then convert it to node-set using ms:node-set function. Then you able for-each second time upon sorted node-set:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0" xmlns:ms="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" exclude-result-prefixes="ms">

  <xsl:output method="html" indent="yes" />

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:variable name="sorted-products">
        <xsl:for-each select="//products/product">
            <xsl:sort select="text()" />

            <xsl:copy-of select=".|@*" />
        </xsl:for-each>
    </xsl:variable>

    <xsl:variable name="products" select="ms:node-set($sorted-products)/product" />

    <xsl:for-each select="$products">
      <xsl:variable name='previous-position' select="position()-1" />

      <xsl:if test="normalize-space($products[$previous-position]) != normalize-space(./text())">
        <li>
          <xsl:value-of select="./text()" />
        </li>
      </xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

output:

<li>charger</li>
<li>headphones</li>
<li>laptop</li>

You can try it out in online playground.

user_11917990
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