- From: Tim Mooney <mooney@dogbert.cc.ndsu.NoDak.edu>
- Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 16:00:45 -0500 (CDT)
- To: www-xsl-fo@w3.org
[I haven't yet subscribed to this list, please Cc: me on any replies]
I have some XML data like:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<request>
<common>
some common stuff, not important
</common>
<account>
<id>foo1</id>
<name>John. Q. Public</name>
</account>
<account>
<id>foo2</id>
<name>George Washington</name>
</account>
<!-- and so on, possibly hundreds of account elements -->
</request>
that I need to transform into PDF to look something like:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Login ID: foo1 | Login ID: foo2 |
| Customer Name: John Q. Public | Customer Name: George Washington |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Login ID: foo3 | Login ID: foo4 |
| Customer Name: John Adams | Customer Name: Thomas Jefferson |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Login ID: foo5 | Login ID: foo6 |
| Customer Name: Abraham Lincoln | Customer Name: Theodore Roosevelt|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Login ID: foo7 | Login ID: foo8 |
| Customer Name: Alexander Hamilton | Customer Name: Woodrow Wilson |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Login ID: foo9 | Login ID: foo10 |
| Customer Name: Herbert Hoover | Customer Name: John F. Kennedy |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The rub is that I can't have any of the cells broken by a page break --
the page break must happen between rows in the table, not within a cell.
I'm using Apache fop 0.20.5, which doesn't have support for most of the FO
that one would use to control that -- widows, orphans, keep-togethers, etc.
If I just mark up static content with FO, I can just do a
<fo:table-row break-before="page">
before every N rows, let's say every 20 rows. I have "perfect" output
happening, with static content marked up and transformed to PDF via fop.
The problem is that now I want to transform my XML data, and I'm having a
miserable time trying to conditionally output the right fo:table-row.
I want to do something like:
<xsl:for-each select="/request/account">
<xsl:sort select="./id" />
<!-- output a table row if position() mod 2 = 1 -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="position() mod 2 = 1">
<!-- yes, should it be a normal fo:table-row or one with -->
<!-- a page break? -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="position() = 1">
<!-- this will be the first cell, don't force a page break here -->
<!-- just a normal page table row -->
<fo:table-row keep-together.within-page="always">
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<!-- have we output enough so we should force a break? -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="position() mod 20 = 0">
<!-- filled a page, output table-row and page-break -->
<fo:table-row break-before="page"
keep-together.within-page="always">
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<!-- just a normal page table row -->
<fo:table-row keep-together.within-page="always">
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:when>
</xsl:choose>
<!-- now output a table cell -->
<xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="cutsheet" />
<!-- if postion() mode 2 = 0, we should output a row close, we've -->
<!-- finished a row of 2 cells, and should output a /fo:table-row -->
<xsl:if test="position() mod 2 = 0">
</fo:table-row>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>
The problem is that the xslt processor will choke on that, because it
sees e.g.
<xsl:if test="position() mod 2 = 0">
</fo:table-row>
</xsl:if>
which is a mismatched tag.
Next I tried:
<xsl:for-each select="/request/account">
<xsl:sort select="./iid" />
<!-- output a table row if position() mod 2 = 1 -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="position() mod 2 = 1">
<!-- yes, should it be a normal fo:table-row or one with -->
<!-- a page break? -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="position() = 1">
<!-- just a normal page table row -->
<fo:table-row keep-together.within-page="always">
<xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="cutsheet" />
<xsl:apply-templates select="following-sibling::."
mode="cutsheet" />
</fo:table-row>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<!-- have we output enough so we should force a break? -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="position() mod 28 = 0">
<!-- filled a page, output table-row and page-break -->
<fo:table-row break-before="page"
keep-together.within-page="always">
<xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="cutsheet" />
<xsl:apply-templates select="following-sibling::."
mode="cutsheet" />
</fo:table-row>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<!-- just a normal page table row -->
<fo:table-row keep-together.within-page="always">
<xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="cutsheet" />
<xsl:apply-templates select="following-sibling::."
mode="cutsheet" />
</fo:table-row>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:when>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:for-each>
In other words, don't just output a fo:table-row, output both the opening
and closing tags for the row, and try get two cells in between them.
As I expected, that doesn't work correctly either, I end up with:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Login ID: foo1 | |
| Customer Name: John Q. Public | |
-------------------------------------| |
| Login ID: foo3 | |
| Customer Name: John Adams | |
-------------------------------------| |
| Login ID: foo5 | |
| Customer Name: Abraham Lincoln | |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
and so on.
Can anyone suggest a way to accomplish what I'm trying to do? I'll gladly
provide more info if I've left anything pertinent out.
Tim
--
Tim Mooney mooney@dogbert.cc.ndsu.NoDak.edu
Information Technology Services (701) 231-1076 (Voice)
Room 242-J6, IACC Building (701) 231-8541 (Fax)
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105-5164
Received on Wednesday, 6 October 2004 21:05:07 UTC