xml - Converting XHTML table to LaTeX using XSLT

Question

I'm new in XSLT (v1.0) and I can't convert complex XHTML tables to LaTeX using XSLT.

What I mean when I said complex tables, are tables with rows with different number of columns. In other words, td with colspan.

i.e. (xhtml table)

<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
    <tr>
        <td valign="top" width="68" colspan="3"> <p>Values</p> </td>
    </tr> 
    <tr> 
        <td valign="top" width="68"> <p>95</p> </td> 
        <td valign="top" width="68"> <p>169</p> <p> </p> </td> 
        <td valign="top" width="68"> <p>180</p> <p> </p> </td>
    </tr>
</table>

What I'm doing in the XSL file is:

<xsl:template match="xhtml:table[@border='1']">
    <xsl:text>egin{center}</xsl:text>
    <xsl:text>egin{tabular}{</xsl:text>

    <xsl:for-each select="xhtml:tr[1]/*">
        <xsl:text>c</xsl:text>
        <xsl:if test="position() = last()">
            <xsl:text>}&#10;</xsl:text>
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>

    <xsl:text>oprule&#10;</xsl:text>
    <xsl:for-each select="xhtml:tr">
        <xsl:if test="position() != 1">
            <xsl:text>midrule&#10;</xsl:text>
        </xsl:if>

        <xsl:if test="position() = 2">
            <xsl:text>midrule&#10;</xsl:text>
        </xsl:if>

        <xsl:for-each select="xhtml:td|xhtml:th">
            <xsl:if test="name() = 'th'">{f </xsl:if>
            <xsl:apply-templates />
            <xsl:if test="name() = 'th'">}</xsl:if>

            <xsl:if test="position() != last()">
            <xsl:text>&amp;</xsl:text>
            </xsl:if>
        </xsl:for-each>

        <xsl:text> \&#10;</xsl:text>
    </xsl:for-each>

    <xsl:text>ottomrule&#10;</xsl:text>

    <xsl:text>end{tabular}&#10;</xsl:text>
    <xsl:text>end{center}&#10;</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>

But as you can see, this code just works for simple tables, without the colspan attribute. The code loops around the first tr, and for each td, it writes an "c". So, in the case above, it will only create a one column table.

What I want to do is count the number of td, and the number of colspans if it exists, to create a correct table, with 3 columns.

Does anyone knows how to do this? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This is easier in XSLT2 but you can use the (//*)[position() <= n] idiom in XSLT 1 to iterate n times. I also fixed up your TeX a bit: f has been deprecated since latex2e released in back in 1993:-)

---

<table  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
    <tr>
        <td valign="top" width="68" colspan="3"> <p>Values</p> </td>
    </tr> 
    <tr> 
        <td valign="top" width="68"> <p>95</p> </td> 
        <td valign="top" width="68"> <p>169</p> <p> </p> </td> 
        <td valign="top" width="68"> <p>180</p> <p> </p> </td>
    </tr>
</table>

---

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
        xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
        xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<xsl:output method="text"/>

<xsl:template match="xhtml:table[@border='1']">
 <xsl:text>egin{center}&#10;</xsl:text>
 <xsl:text>egin{tabular}{</xsl:text>

 <xsl:for-each select="xhtml:tr[1]/*">
  <xsl:choose>
   <xsl:when test="@colspan">
    <xsl:for-each select="(//*)[position()&lt;=current()/@colspan]">c</xsl:for-each>
   </xsl:when>
   <xsl:otherwise>c</xsl:otherwise>
  </xsl:choose>
 </xsl:for-each>
 <xsl:text>}&#10;</xsl:text>

 <xsl:text>oprule&#10;</xsl:text>
 <xsl:for-each select="xhtml:tr">
  <xsl:if test="position() != 1">
   <xsl:text>midrule&#10;</xsl:text>
  </xsl:if>

  <xsl:if test="position() = 2">
   <xsl:text>midrule&#10;</xsl:text>
  </xsl:if>

  <xsl:for-each select="xhtml:td|xhtml:th">
   <xsl:if test="self::xhtml:th">fseries </xsl:if>
   <xsl:apply-templates />
   <xsl:if test="position() != last()">
    <xsl:text>&amp;</xsl:text>
   </xsl:if>
  </xsl:for-each>

  <xsl:if test="position()!=last()"> \&#10;</xsl:if>
 </xsl:for-each>

 <xsl:text>end{tabular}&#10;</xsl:text>
 <xsl:text>end{center}</xsl:text>

</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

---

egin{center}
egin{tabular}{ccc}
oprule
 Values  \
midrule
midrule
 95 & 169   & 180   end{tabular}
end{center}