XSLT split text and preserve HTML tags
- by Lycaon
I have an xml that has a description node:
<config>
<desc>A <b>first</b> sentence here. The second sentence with some link <a href="myurl">The link</a>. The <u>third</u> one.</desc>
</config>
I am trying to split the sentences using dot as separator but keeping in the same time in the HTML output the eventual HTML tags.
What I have so far is a template that splits the description but the HTML tags are lost in the output due to the normalize-space and substring-before functions.
My current template is given below:
<xsl:template name="output-tokens">
<xsl:param name="sourceText" />
<!-- Force a . at the end -->
<xsl:variable name="newlist" select="concat(normalize-space($sourceText), ' ')" />
<!-- Check if we have really a point at the end -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test ="contains($newlist, '.')">
<!-- Find the first . in the string -->
<xsl:variable name="first" select="substring-before($newlist, '.')" />
<!-- Get the remaining text -->
<xsl:variable name="remaining" select="substring-after($newlist, '.')" />
<!-- Check if our string is not in fact a . or an empty string -->
<xsl:if test="normalize-space($first)!='.' and normalize-space($first)!=''">
<p><xsl:value-of select="normalize-space($first)" />.</p>
</xsl:if>
<!-- Recursively apply the template for the remaining text -->
<xsl:if test="$remaining">
<xsl:call-template name="output-tokens">
<xsl:with-param name="sourceText" select="$remaining" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:when>
<!--If no . was found -->
<xsl:otherwise>
<p>
<!-- If the string does not contains a . then display the text but avoid
displaying empty strings
-->
<xsl:if test="normalize-space($sourceText)!=''">
<xsl:value-of select="normalize-space($sourceText)" />.
</xsl:if>
</p>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>
and I am using it in the following manner:
<xsl:template match="config">
<xsl:call-template name="output-tokens">
<xsl:with-param name="sourceText" select="desc" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:template>
The expected output is:
<p>A <b>first</b> sentence here.</p>
<p>The second sentence with some link <a href="myurl">The link</a>.</p>
<p>The <u>third</u> one.</p>
