XSLT Replace function not found

Question

I am writing an XSLT transformation in which I wish to use the Replace function to do a regex match and replace.

However, Visual Studio 2008 reports that

Answer 1

Replace is not valid in XSLT 1.0. You have "translate()", which might work for you, but replace() is XSLT 2, and not part of the MS .NET XML codebase. You can get it with some third party XML libraries though.

Answer 2

you should have placed the Feature= string between quotes as follows

<xsl:otherwise><td style="border: solid 1px black; background-color:#00CC66;">    <xsl:variable name="FeatureInfo" select="Text" />    <xsl:call-template name="string-replace-all">      <xsl:with-param name="text" select="$FeatureInfo"/>      <xsl:with-param name="replace" select="'Feature='"/>      <xsl:with-param name="by" select="TESTING"/>    </xsl:call-template>  </td></xsl:otherwise>

Thanks

Answer 3

How about embedding a c# script to do the replacement?

Add the following to the bottom of your stylesheet:

<msxsl:script language="C#" implements-prefix="scr"> <![CDATA[ public string Replace(string stringToModify, string pattern, string replacement) { return stringToModify.Replace(pattern, replacement); } ]]> </msxsl:script>

Add a namespace attribute to the stylesheet element:

xmlns:scr="urn:scr.this"

Then implement as....

<xsl:value-of select="scr:Replace(description/text(), 'ABC', '123')"/>

Answer 4

As far as I know, replace() was introduces in XLST 2.0. What is the version definition of your document? Maybe you've to set VS 2008 to use XLST 2.0 (if possible).

Answer 5

The replace function is only available in XSLT version 2.0, not in version 1.0 which is what Visual Studio uses. Just because you've specified version="2.0" doesn't mean that Visual Studio supports it.

Here's a template on codesling that implements string-replace in XSLT 1.0. You should be able to use it but I can't vouch for its efficiency.

(Taken from the link above)

<xsl:template name="string-replace-all">
  <xsl:param name="text"/>
  <xsl:param name="replace"/>
  <xsl:param name="by"/>
  <xsl:choose>
    <xsl:when test="contains($text,$replace)">
      <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($text,$replace)"/>
      <xsl:value-of select="$by"/>
      <xsl:call-template name="string-replace-all">
        <xsl:with-param name="text" select="substring-after($text,$replace)"/>
        <xsl:with-param name="replace" select="$replace"/>
        <xsl:with-param name="by" select="$by"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:when>
    <xsl:otherwise>
      <xsl:value-of select="$text"/>
    </xsl:otherwise>
  </xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

You'd call it like this:

<xsl:otherwise>
  <td style="border: solid 1px black; background-color:#00CC66;">
    <xsl:variable name="FeatureInfo" select="Text" />
    <xsl:call-template name="string-replace-all">
      <xsl:with-param name="text" select="$FeatureInfo"/>
      <xsl:with-param name="replace" select="Feature="/>
      <xsl:with-param name="by" select="TESTING"/>
    </xsl:call-template>
  </td>
</xsl:otherwise>

Answer 6

For simple string replacement the translate function (available in xslt 1.0) worked fine for me.

I used it to strip out spaces for numeric values.