XSLT, 2nd Edition

Name

[2.0] remove()

Given a sequence and a position, removes the item at the requested position.

Syntax

item()* remove($target as item()*, $position as xs:integer)

Inputs

A sequence and an xs:integer.

Outputs

This function returns the input sequence with the item at the requested position removed. If the position is less than 1 or greater than the length of the sequence, the sequence is returned unchanged. Finally, if the sequence is the empty sequence, the empty sequence is returned.

Defined in

XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators section 15.1, “General Functions and Operators on Sequences.”

Example

To illustrate the remove() function, we’ll look at three short stylesheets. Each stylesheet uses a different type of sequence. The first stylesheet uses a singleton sequence:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- remove1.xsl -->
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
  xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

  <xsl:output method="text"/>

  <xsl:template match="/">

    <xsl:variable name="singleton" as="item()*">
      <xsl:sequence select="(3)"/>
    </xsl:variable>

    <xsl:text>&#xA;Here is a test of the remove() </xsl:text>
    <xsl:text>function:&#xA;</xsl:text>

    <xsl:text>&#xA;  Our sequence ($singleton) </xsl:text>
    <xsl:text>is:&#xA;      </xsl:text>
    <xsl:value-of select="$singleton" separator="&#xA;    "/>
    <xsl:text>&#xA;&#xA;    remove($singleton, 0) = </xsl:text>
    <xsl:value-of select="remove($singleton, 0)" 
      separator="&#xA;    "/> <xsl:text>&#xA;&#xA; remove($singleton, 7) = </xsl:text> ...