Question

I'm trying to use Muenchian grouping in my XSLT to group matching nodes, but I only want to group within a parent node, not across the entire source XML document.

Given XSLT and XML as follows (apologies for the length of my sample code):

XSLT

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl"> 
 <xsl:output method="html" indent="yes"/>

 <xsl:key name="contacts-by-surname" match="contact" use="surname" />
 <xsl:template match="records">
  <xsl:for-each select="contact[count(. | key('contacts-by-surname', surname)[1]) = 1]">
   <xsl:sort select="surname" />
   <xsl:value-of select="surname" />,<br />
   <xsl:for-each select="key('contacts-by-surname', surname)">
    <xsl:sort select="forename" />
    <xsl:value-of select="forename" /> (<xsl:value-of select="title" />)<br />
   </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:for-each>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

XML

<root>
 <records>
  <contact id="0001">
   <title>Mr</title>
   <forename>John</forename>
   <surname>Smith</surname>
  </contact>
  <contact id="0002">
   <title>Dr</title>
   <forename>Amy</forename>
   <surname>Jones</surname>
  </contact>
  <contact id="0003">
   <title>Mrs</title>
   <forename>Mary</forename>
   <surname>Smith</surname>
  </contact>
  <contact id="0004">
   <title>Ms</title>
   <forename>Anne</forename>
   <surname>Jones</surname>
  </contact>
  <contact id="0005">
   <title>Mr</title>
   <forename>Peter</forename>
   <surname>Smith</surname>
  </contact>
  <contact id="0006">
   <title>Dr</title>
   <forename>Indy</forename>
   <surname>Jones</surname>
  </contact>
 </records>
 <records>
  <contact id="0001">
   <title>Mr</title>
   <forename>James</forename>
   <surname>Smith</surname>
  </contact>
  <contact id="0002">
   <title>Dr</title>
   <forename>Mandy</forename>
   <surname>Jones</surname>
  </contact>
  <contact id="0003">
   <title>Mrs</title>
   <forename>Elizabeth</forename>
   <surname>Smith</surname>
  </contact>
  <contact id="0004">
   <title>Ms</title>
   <forename>Sally</forename>
   <surname>Jones</surname>
  </contact>
  <contact id="0005">
   <title>Mr</title>
   <forename>George</forename>
   <surname>Smith</surname>
  </contact>
  <contact id="0006">
   <title>Dr</title>
   <forename>Harry</forename>
   <surname>Jones</surname>
  </contact>
 </records>
</root>

RESULT

Jones,
Amy (Dr)
Anne (Ms)
Harry (Dr)
Indy (Dr)
Mandy (Dr)
Sally (Ms)

Smith,
Elizabeth (Mrs)
George (Mr)
James (Mr)
John (Mr)
Mary (Mrs)
Peter (Mr)

How do I group within each <records> and achieve this result:

Jones,
Amy (Dr)
Anne (Ms)
Indy (Dr)

Smith,
John (Mr)
Mary (Mrs)
Peter (Mr)

Jones,
Harry (Dr)
Mandy (Dr)
Sally (Ms)

Smith,
Elizabeth (Mrs)
George (Mr)
James (Mr)
Was it helpful?

Solution

Took me some time ... I was about to give up but continued nevertheless :)

The drawback of the key function is that the key generated will always be for the entire xml. Hence you should concatenate additional information in your key to make it more specific. In the e.g. below, I am concatenating the position of records node, so that I get keys for distinct surnames per records.

Here's the xslt:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl">
  <xsl:output method="html" indent="yes"/>
  <xsl:key name="distinct-surname" match="contact" use="concat(generate-id(..), '|', surname)"/>
  <xsl:template match="records">
    <xsl:for-each select="contact[generate-id() = generate-id(key('distinct-surname', concat(generate-id(..), '|', surname))[1])]">
      <xsl:sort select="surname" />
      <xsl:value-of select="surname" />,<br />
      <xsl:for-each select="key('distinct-surname', concat(generate-id(..), '|', surname))">
        <xsl:sort select="forename" />
        <xsl:value-of select="forename" /> (<xsl:value-of select="title" />)<br />
      </xsl:for-each>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:template>  
</xsl:stylesheet>

This is the result:

Jones,
Amy (Dr)
Anne (Ms)
Indy (Dr)
Smith,
John (Mr)
Mary (Mrs)
Peter (Mr)
Jones,
Harry (Dr)
Mandy (Dr)
Sally (Ms)
Smith,
Elizabeth (Mrs)
George (Mr)
James (Mr)

Please note that the result is sorted on the forenames too. If you don't want to sort it on forenames, you need to remove the line <xsl:sort select="forename" />

OTHER TIPS

There is simpler method, by adding a predicate which ensure than contacts involved in muench test are child of the current records.

<xsl:key name="contacts-by-surname" match="contact" use="surname" />
<xsl:template match="records">
  <xsl:for-each select="contact[count(. | key('contacts-by-surname', surname)[generate-id(parent::records) = generate-id(current())][1]) = 1]">
   <xsl:sort select="surname" />
   <xsl:value-of select="surname" />,<br />
   <xsl:for-each select="key('contacts-by-surname', surname)[generate-id(parent::records) = generate-id(current()/parent::records)]">
    <xsl:sort select="forename" />
    <xsl:value-of select="forename" /> (<xsl:value-of select="title" />)<br />
   </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
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