XSLT Reference |  |
XSLT Reference | |
This element is used just inside the start of either
an <xsl:apply-templates> element or
a <xsl:for-each>
element. It has the effect of sorting the nodes in the
parent element's node-set, so that the content is
presented sorted according to some aspect of the content.
You can use multiple <xsl:sort> elements to specify
multiple sort keys. That is, if there are two <xsl:sort> elements, the first
one specifies the primary key, and the second one the
secondary sort key (to be used in comparing items that
have the same value for the primary key).
The sort is stable, that is, if two items are equal in all key values, they will be in the same order as they were in the original document.
Here are the attributes:
selectAn XPath expression that selects the nodes to be sorted. The default value is the node-set of the parent element.
data-typeUse a value of "text" to treat the items
as text strings, or a value of "number" to treat them as
numbers. Default is "text".
orderUse "asc" for ascending order
(this is the default), or "desc" for descending
order.
case-orderSpecifies how to compare uppercase and
lowercase letters. A value of
"upper-first" forces
uppercase letters before lowercase ones; the opposite
is "lower-first".
The default is language-dependent.
langDefines the language to be used in sorting. See the definition of the language codes online.
Here's an example. Suppose you have <person> elements that have
children named <surname> (containing the
person's last name) and <first-name> (containing the
person's given name). You want to process them in order
by last name, using the first name as a tiebreaker. Here
is a stylesheet fragment that does this:
<xsl:for-each select="person">
<xsl:sort select="surname"/>
<xsl:sort select="first-name"/>
<xsl:apply-templates select="."/>
</xsl:for-each>