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1 Templates of type //XSL transformation// are utilized to transform an XML export file and can be used, for example, in actions of type [[Export (XML-File)>>doc:Formcycle.Designer.Workflow.Actions.ExportXML]] or for [[exporting a form record in an Inbox>>doc:Formcycle.Inbox.WebHome]].
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3 There are some tutorials on XSL transformation at [[w3schools>>url:https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xsl_transformation.asp]] and [[TutorialsPoint>>url:https://www.tutorialspoint.com/xslt/]].
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5 == Supported versions of the XSLT and XPath standards ==
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7 Up to and including {{formcycle/}} version 7.2.1, only //XSL transformations// using the XSLT 1.0 and XPath 1.0 language standards are supported.
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9 {{version major="7" minor="3" patch="0"/}}Starting with {{formcycle/}} version 7.3, a different processor is used, which supports XSLT 3.0 and XPath 3.1.
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11 == Differences in the use of XSL transformations in {{formcycle/}} version 7.3 or higher ==
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13 Basically, the XSLT processor used in newer {{formcycle/}} XSLT processor used in newer {{formcycle/}} versions supports all the language features that the older processor supported, since it is backward compatible with XSLT 1.0.
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15 However, the XSLT processor used in older {{formcycle/}} versions allowed certain statements that are not mandated by the language standard. This can cause existing XSL transformations to fail after updating to a {{formcycle/}} version greater than or equal to 7.3.
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17 So far, the following problems are known:
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19 === Nested function calls ===
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21 Function calls in the form
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23 {{code language="xml"}}
24 <xsl:variable name="dd">
25 <xsl:value-of select="format-number(substring-before($datestr,'.'), '0' )" />
26 </xsl:variable>
27 {{/code}}
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29 are no longer possible. Instead, you can cache the result of the inner function in variables, for example:
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31 {{code language="xml"}}
32 <xsl:variable name="ddtemp">
33 <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($datestr,'.')" />
34 </xsl:variable>
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36 <xsl:variable name="dd">
37 <xsl:value-of select="format-number($ddtemp, '0' )" />
38 </xsl:variable>
39 {{/code}}
40
41 === Spaces ===
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43 Particularly when resolving loop variables, spaces are mandatory in certain constellations where this was not necessary before. This can be seen in the following example:
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45 {{code language="xml"}}
46 <xsl:if test="position()=1 and .!=''">
47 {{/code}}
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49 Spaces must be present here as follows:
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51 {{code language="xml"}}
52 <xsl:if test="position() = 1 and . != ''">
53 {{/code}}
54
55 === Functions in For-Each Loops ===
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57 The comparison of the //position()// variable e.g. within an xsl:if block could previously be done against a string with the position value.
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59 {{code language="xml"}}
60 <xsl:if test="position()='1'">
61 {{/code}}
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63 This never conformed to the standard, and is no longer possible. Instead, the comparison must be made with the pure numerical value:
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65 {{code language="xml"}}
66 <xsl:if test="position() = 1">
67 {{/code}}