XSLT

Name

<xsl:sort> — Defines a sort key for the current context. This element appears as a child of the <xsl:apply-templates> or <xsl:for-each> elements. Within those elements, the first <xsl:sort> defines the primary sort key, the second <xsl:sort> defines the secondary sort key, etc.

Category

Subinstruction (<xsl:sort> always appears as a child of the <xsl:apply-templates> or <xsl:for-each> elements)

Required Attributes

None.

Optional Attributes

select

An XPath expression that defines the nodes to be sorted.

lang

A string that defines the language used by the sort. The language codes are defined in RFC1766, available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1766.txt.

data-type

An attribute that defines the type of the items to be sorted. Allowable values are number and text; the default is text. An XSLT processor has the option of supporting other values as well. Sorting the values 32 10 120 with data-type="text" returns 10 120 32, while data-type="number" returns 10 32 120.

order

An attribute that defines the order of the sort. Allowable values are ascending and descending.

case-order

An attribute that defines the order in which upper- and lowercase letters are sorted. Allowable values are upper-first and lower-first.

Content

None.

Appears in

<xsl:apply-templates> and <xsl:for-each>.

Defined in

XSLT section 10, Sorting.

Example

We’ll illustrate <xsl:sort> with this stylesheet:

<?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output method="text"/> <xsl:variable ...