XSLT Cookbook

Reorganizing an XML Hierarchy

Problem

You need to reorganize the information in an XML document to make some implicit information explicit and some explicit information implicit.

Solution

Again, consider the SalesBySalesPerson.xml document from Chapter 4:

<salesBySalesperson>
  <salesperson name="John Adams" seniority="1">
    <product sku="10000" totalSales="10000.00"/>
    <product sku="20000" totalSales="50000.00"/>
    <product sku="25000" totalSales="920000.00"/>
  </salesperson>
  <salesperson name="Wendy Long" seniority="5">
    <product sku="10000" totalSales="990000.00"/>
    <product sku="20000" totalSales="150000.00"/>
    <product sku="30000" totalSales="5500.00"/>
  </salesperson>
  <salesperson name="Willie B. Aggressive" seniority="10">
    <product sku="10000" totalSales="1110000.00"/>
    <product sku="20000" totalSales="150000.00"/>
    <product sku="25000" totalSales="2920000.00"/>
    <product sku="30000" totalSales="115500.00"/>
    <product sku="70000" totalSales="10000.00"/>
  </salesperson>
  <salesperson name="Arty Outtolunch" seniority="10"/>
</salesBySalesperson>

Which products were sold by which salesperson and how much income the salesperson created for each sold product is explicit. The total income generated by each product is implicit, as are the names of all salespeople who sold any given product.

Therefore, to reorganize this document, you would need to convert to a view that shows sales by product. The following stylesheet accomplishes this transformation:

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