XSLT select question

[Guoqiao Sun]

Dear all:
Is it possible to select a range of node using XSLT, for example, for the following XML:
<test>
<scan>1</scan>
<scan>2</scan>
<scan>3</scan>
<scan>4</scan>
<scan>5</scan>
</test>
How to select all scan element with text value less than 4. In other word, I want to select
<scan>1</scan>
<scan>2</scan>
<scan>3</scan>
by knowing incoming parameter value as 4.
Any help, thanks in advance.

[Ron Newman]

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"  version="1.0">
 
<xsl:template match="/">
   <test>
   <xsl:apply-templates/>
   </test>
</xsl:template>
              
<xsl:template match="scan[. &lt; 4]">
   <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="text()"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>

The first template generates the outer <test> element -- without this, the output would not be well-formed XML since it would contain multiple <scan> elements at the root level.
The second template matches each <scan> element whose text value is less than 4. Note that in the predicate expression, I had to escape the less-than sign as &lt; since "<" isn't allowed in an XML attribute value.
The third template suppresses the default action of printing out the text value of all nodes.
[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Ron Newman ]

[Guoqiao Sun]

Hi, Ron:
Thank you very much for your reply!!! I think your method works to my above example. Can I further ask another question, is it possible if the value is not merely number, like the following:
To select from:
<test>
<scan>1a</scan>
<scan>2a</scan>
<scan>3a</scan>
<scan>4a</scan>
<scan>5a</scan>
</test>
to get the following:
<test>
<scan>1a</scan>
<scan>2a</scan>
<scan>3a</scan>
</test>
using 4a as the criteria?
Thanks again for your reply!
guoqiao

[Ron Newman]

You'll need to precisely define the format of that string, and then use the substring(), substring-before(), substring-after(), translate(), string-length(), and/or contains() functions to extract the numeric information from it.
[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Ron Newman ]

[Guoqiao Sun]

Hi, Ron:
Thank you very much! I think I got very helpful hint from your words.
Thanks again and have a nice day there!!!
Guoqiao

Originally posted by Ron Newman:
You'll need to precisely define the format of that string, and then use the substring(), substring-before(), substring-after(), translate(), string-length(), and/or contains() functions to extract the numeric information from it.
[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Ron Newman ]