XSLT, 2nd Edition

[2.0] The <xsl:perform-sort> Element

As we discussed in Chapter 3, XSLT 2.0 introduces the concept of a sequence, which is a group of nodes or atomic values. That sequence is typically created during stylesheet processing, usually as a variable. You can use the <xsl:perform-sort> element to sort a sequence. Everything we’ve discussed about sorting applies to <xsl:perform-sort>; we’ll look at some examples here.

There are two ways to use <xsl:perform-sort>: you can give it an existing sequence and use <xsl:perform-sort> to sort that sequence, or you can use <xsl:perform-sort> to both create the sequence and sort it. For our first example, we’ll create a sequence of all the <city> elements and use <xsl:perform-sort> to sort it:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- perform-sort1.xsl -->
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" 
  xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

  <xsl:output method="text"/>

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:variable name="sortedCities" as="xs:string*">
      <xsl:perform-sort select="addressbook/address/city">
        <xsl:sort select="."/>
      </xsl:perform-sort>
    </xsl:variable>
    <xsl:text>Our customers live in these cities:&#xA;&#xA;</xsl:text>
    <xsl:value-of select="$sortedCities" separator="&#xA;"/>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

The select attribute of <xsl:perform-sort> defines the sequence to be sorted. When we use this stylesheet against our address book, here are the results:

Our customers live in these cities: Boylston Lynn Sheboygan Skunk Haven ...