count(*)

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/ 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Edward Bryant [mailto:bryant_edward@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 03 May 2005 18:23
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  XPATH total count of multiple child nodes 
> 
> 
> Thanks everyone for the helpful answers to my previous 
> question on character 
> entities.
> 
> My new problem is that I am trying to build a conditional 
> statement based on 
> a count of the number of child elements. There is an element 
> "dates" that 
> contains child elements containing particular dates. 
> Normally, I would use 
> something like:
> 
> Check if any of them exisit at all...
> 
> <xsl:if test="(filed) or (decided) or (submitted) or 
> (revised) or (term)">
> 
> then, see if there is more than one of them ...
> 
> <xsl:if test="count(date) > 1">
> 
> However, the child elements do not all have the same name. 
> They can have one 
> of five different names (filed, decided, submitted, revised, 
> or term), which 
> may appear in almost any combination. There are no other 
> child elements, so 
> I was hoping there was a simple way to count the total number 
> of child 
> elements without specifying them by name?