This is a tip about implementing a first character range filter with pure XSLT 1.0.

Though being a bit out of the main hype, XML data files and transforming style sheets are still attractive to separate data and rendering. So this might be helpful for regular users of XML and XSL.

  • The problem

The transformers and and their description, existing in version XSLT 2.0, are quite power­ful, as soon as being accustomed to xls‘ scatterbrained syntax. XSLT 1.0 is, of course, in no way better and much less expressive and less powerful.

  • Still using XSLT 1.0 for good reasons

But there are cases, where one has to stick to XSLT 1.0 without any extensions. This would be mainly due to some server’s, framework’s or PHP installation’s and client’s limitations. There, one often has little to no influence. Using XSLT 2.0 or any extensions not covered by the standard and then hitting one of the above said limited environments in deployment or at customer sites is a way to to get into deep doo-doo.

In other words it may sometimes still be clever to stick to pure XSLT 1.0 against all advice and mockery.

  • XSLT 1.0’s abashing facilities for string / character operations

One of the worst limitations of XSLT 1.0 is the almost total absence of decent string and character functions and operators. At one hand it is possible to sort using a string attribute (or value) as key. On the other h…
… Read all at XSLT1.0RangeFilter.pdf (on a-weinert.de/p… / pub/).