You failed to guess the right keyword: "grouping".

This is a classic grouping problem. In XSLT 2.0 such problems are easy, use
xsl:for-each-group. In XSLT 1.0 they are much harder, except that the code
has been written many times. See http://www.jenitennison.com/xslt/grouping.

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Peters [mailto:flickrmeister@xxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 05 June 2007 13:15
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  Re: Structuring multiple HTML tables based on 
> the value of a child node
> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> Sorry for the long subject line. I've been reading Dave 
> Pawson's site for a starting point on a particular project, 
> but I'm not even sure how to distill it into browse/search 
> terms. None of the general headings I've explored seem to 
> quite describe it.
> 
> Here's what I'm trying to do. I'd like to structure my data 
> as multiple HTML tables based on the value of a child node.
> 
> For example, in the sample input file below, I'd like to 
> generate three HTML tables, one for each <color> value. The 
> tables would include two columns: Name and Shape. The table 
> rows display the name and shape data for each color. The 
> <table> element would include an id attribute that contains 
> the <color> value.
> 
> 
> Sample input file:
> 
> <signs>
>    <sign>
>       <name>stop</name>
>       <shape>hexagon</shape>
>       <color>red</color>
>    </sign>
>    <sign>
>        <name>yield</name>
>       <shape>triangle</shape>
>        <color>yellow</color>
>     </sign>
>    <sign>
>        <name>steep incline</name>
>       <shape>diamond</shape>
>        <color>yellow</color>
>     </sign>
>    <sign>
>        <name>slippery when wet</name>
>       <shape>diamond</shape>
>        <color>yellow</color>
>     </sign>
>    <sign>
>        <name>city name</name>
>       <shape>rectangle</shape>
>        <color>green</color>
>     </sign>
> </signs>
> 
> 
> If I use <for-each>, I end up with a table for every <sign> element.
> How could someone create a single table for each <color> value?
> 
> Here's what I have so far:
> 
>     <xsl:template match="\">
>       <xsl:for-each select="signs/sign/color">
>       <xsl:sort select="."/>
>         <table frame="all" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
>             <xsl:attribute name="id"><xsl:value-of 
> select="."/></xsl:attribute>
>              <tr>
>                  <th>Name</entry>
>                  <th>Shape</entry>
>              </tr>
>              <xsl:for-each select="../name">
>                   <xsl:sort select="."/>
>                       <tr>
>                           <td>
>                              <xsl:value-of select="."/>
>                           </td>
>                           <td>
>                              <xsl:value-of select="shape"/>
>                           </td>
>                       </tr>
>                   </xsl:for-each>
>             </table>
>         </xsl:for-each>
>     </xsl:template>
> 
> 
> Thanks for any suggestions. I appreciate all of the help the 
> kind people on this list have provided over the past year. 
> I've learned a lot from reading the posts and exploring on my own.
> 
> Regards,
> Mark