Jeni's solution will work, but using generate-id() is likely to be more
efficient. This generates an identifier for a particular node in the XML
source tree, which can often be used as a unique identifier for a node
in the HTML result tree.

Michael Kay
Software AG
home: Michael.H.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxx
work: Michael.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
> Jeni Tennison
> Sent: 06 October 2002 15:29
> To: Simeon Walker
> Cc: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re:  generating numbers for anchor tabindex
> 
> 
> Hi Simeon,
> 
> > I am trying to think of a way to automatically generate numbers for 
> > the tabindex property of html anchors. Since the xml that ends up 
> > getting transformed into the anchor could be at any level 
> within the 
> > document I can't use a simple position().
> 
> Try using xsl:number with level="any":
> 
>   <xsl:number level="any" />
> 
> That will get you a number for the <a> element amongst *all* 
> the other <a> elements in the document. If you want to narrow 
> that down, you can use the 'count' attribute, to for example 
> only count those <a> elements that have an 'id' attribute:
> 
>   <xsl:number level="any" count="a[@id]" />
> 
> These are essentially the same as:
> 
>   <xsl:value-of select="count(preceding::a) + 1" />
> 
> and:
> 
>   <xsl:value-of select="count(preceding::a[@id]) + 1" />
> 
> respectively.
>   
> Cheers,
> 
> Jeni
> 
> ---
> Jeni Tennison
> http://www.jenitennison.com/
> 
> 
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> 


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