XSLT & XSL-FO: Creating a table with multiple rows?

Question

I'm fairly new to XSLT and I am stuck with a problem where I have an Element with an unknown amount of children, and I need to display these children in a table such that there are 5-6 columns available to display the information.

If I'm given an XML file that looks like this:

<books>
    <book>
        <author>Ralls, Kim</author>
        <title>Midnight Rain</title>
    </book>
    <book>
        <author>Corets, Eva</author>
        <title>Maeve Ascendant</title>
    </book>
    <book>
        <author>Corets, Eva</author>
        <title>Oberon's Legacy</title>
    </book>
    <book>
        <author>Randall, Cynthia</author>
        <title>Lover Birds</title>
    </book>
    <book>
        <author>Thurman, Paula</author>
        <title>Splish Splash</title>
    </book>
    <book>
        <author>Knorr, Stefan</author>
        <title>Creepy Crawlies</title>
    </book>
    <book>
        <author>Kress, Peter</author>
        <title>Paradox Lost</title>
    </book>
    <book>
        <author>Crichton, Michael</author>
        <title>Jurassic Park</title>
    </book>
    <book>
        <author>Orwell, George</author>
        <title>1984</title>
    </book>
    <book>
        <author>Martin, George</author>
        <title>A Song of Ice And Fire</title>
    </book>
</books>

I would like to display these 10 books in a table consisting of two rows and five columns.

I've gotten this far:

<xsl:template match="books" mode="table">
    <fo:table margin-left="auto" margin-right="auto">
        <fo:table-body>
            <fo:table-row table-layout="fixed">
                <xsl:for-each select="skill">
                    <fo:table-cell border="1">
                        <fo:block font-weight="bold">
                            <xsl:value-of select="name"/>
                        </fo:block>
                    </fo:table-cell>    
                </xsl:for-each>
            </fo:table-row>
        </fo:table-body>
    </fo:table>
</xsl:template>

But all this will do is put every cell on the same row. I'm looking for a way to check if the loop has run a certain amount of times (5 or 6), and inserting a new row when that happens, but I don't know if that's something I can do in XSL.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Perhaps this will help you get started: stackoverflow.com/questions/24252603/… It's practically the same problem. You can use the same stylesheet, adapt it to XSL-FO, and change the number of columns to 5. — helderdarocha
– helderdarocha, Commented Jun 19, 2014 at 16:21

Kevin Brown · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-20 03:17:10Z

The previous answers are way to complicated for what should be (and is) easy. Recursion is not required for such a simple thing.

In XSL FO you do not need to structure tables with rows. You can use the attribute "ends-row" to specify that you are ending a row and starting a new one. You can easily adapt this simple example and even pass in the "number of columns" (see the mod 5 ... which means after every fifth one start a new row ... change to 4 or 8 or whatever you wish) ... You would just create the structure for the table (fo:table and fo:table-body) outside of this. Inside the table body just put cells as children like this template does:

  <xsl:template match="book">
    <xsl:variable name="pos" select="position()"/>
    <fo:table-cell>
        <xsl:if test="not($pos mod 5)">
            <xsl:attribute name="ends-row">true</xsl:attribute>
        </xsl:if>
        <fo:block>
            <xsl:value-of select="author"/>
        </fo:block>
    </fo:table-cell>
</xsl:template>

So putting this into a simple example with your data ... see below. Formats your XML into five columns per row.

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"
    xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
    version="1.0">
<xsl:template match="/">
    <fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
        <fo:layout-master-set>
            <fo:simple-page-master margin-top="1in" margin-left="1in" margin-bottom="1in"
                margin-right="1in" page-width="8in" page-height="11in" master-name="first">
                <fo:region-body margin-top="0pt"/>
                <fo:region-before extent="0pt"/>
                <fo:region-after extent="0pt"/>
            </fo:simple-page-master>
        </fo:layout-master-set>
        <fo:page-sequence master-reference="first">
            <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body" font-size="12pt" font-family="Helvetica">
    <xsl:apply-templates/>
            </fo:flow>
        </fo:page-sequence>
    </fo:root>
</xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="books">
        <fo:table>
            <fo:table-body>
                <xsl:apply-templates/>
            </fo:table-body>
        </fo:table>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="book">
        <xsl:variable name="pos" select="position()"/>
        <fo:table-cell border="1pt solid black">
            <xsl:if test="not($pos mod 5)">
                <xsl:attribute name="ends-row">true</xsl:attribute>
            </xsl:if>
            <fo:block>
                <xsl:value-of select="author"/>
            </fo:block>
        </fo:table-cell>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Fabian Mebus · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-20 00:13:21Z

One approach is to use two recursive templates:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
                xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                xmlns:ext="http://exslt.org/common"
                xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"
                exclude-result-prefixes="ext">
    <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>


    <!-- set the number of columns you want globally -->
    <xsl:param name="set-cols" select="'5'"/>


    <xsl:template match="books">
        <!-- count the needed rows -->
        <xsl:variable name="set-row" select="ceiling(count(book) div $set-cols)"/>

        <fo:table margin-left="auto" margin-right="auto">
            <fo:table-body>
                <xsl:call-template name="rows">
                    <xsl:with-param name="books">
                        <xsl:apply-templates/>
                    </xsl:with-param>
                    <xsl:with-param name="set-row" select="$set-row"/>
                </xsl:call-template>
            </fo:table-body>
        </fo:table>
    </xsl:template>


    <!-- rows -->
    <xsl:template name="rows">
        <xsl:param name="books" select="''"/>
        <xsl:param name="set-row" select="''"/>
        <xsl:param name="count-rows" select="'0'"/>

        <xsl:if test="$set-row &gt; 0">
            <fo:table-row table-layout="fixed">
                <xsl:call-template name="cols">
                    <xsl:with-param name="books" select="$books"/>
                    <xsl:with-param name="count-rows" select="$count-rows"/>
                </xsl:call-template>
            </fo:table-row>
            <xsl:call-template name="rows">
                <xsl:with-param name="books" select="$books"/>
                <xsl:with-param name="set-row" select="$set-row - 1"/>
                <xsl:with-param name="count-rows" select="$count-rows + 1"/>
            </xsl:call-template>
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:template>


    <!-- columns -->
    <xsl:template name="cols">
        <xsl:param name="books" select="''"/>
        <xsl:param name="cols" select="$set-cols"/>
        <xsl:param name="count-rows" select="''"/>
        <xsl:param name="count-cols" select="'1'"/>

        <xsl:if test="$cols &gt; 0">
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">
                    <xsl:variable name="book" select="ext:node-set($books)//book[position() = ($count-rows * $set-cols + $count-cols)]"/>
                    <xsl:value-of select="$book/author"/>
                </fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
            <xsl:call-template name="cols">
                <xsl:with-param name="books" select="$books"/>
                <xsl:with-param name="cols" select="$cols - 1"/>
                <xsl:with-param name="count-rows" select="$count-rows"/>
                <xsl:with-param name="count-cols" select="$count-cols + 1"/>
            </xsl:call-template>
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

With yout input

<books>
    <book>
        <author>Ralls, Kim</author>
        <title>Midnight Rain</title>
    </book>
    <book>
        <author>Corets, Eva</author>
        <title>Maeve Ascendant</title>
    </book>
    <!-- ... -->
</books>

you get:

<fo:table margin-left="auto" margin-right="auto" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
    <fo:table-body>
        <fo:table-row table-layout="fixed">
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">Ralls, Kim</fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">Corets, Eva</fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">Corets, Eva</fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">Randall, Cynthia</fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">Thurman, Paula</fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
        </fo:table-row>
        <fo:table-row table-layout="fixed">
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">Knorr, Stefan</fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">Kress, Peter</fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">Crichton, Michael</fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">Orwell, George</fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
            <fo:table-cell border="1">
                <fo:block font-weight="bold">Martin, George</fo:block>
            </fo:table-cell>
        </fo:table-row>
    </fo:table-body>
</fo:table>

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