I am trying to sorting based on Text - XSLT

Question

I am trying to sorting on text based first text should be upper case then other start with first letter caps or small letter.
Input XML

Answer 1

To sort upper-case letters before lower-case letters, use the case-order attribute of xsl:sort.

Here's a simplified example:

XSLT

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" 
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>

<xsl:template match="/root">
    <xsl:copy>
        <xsl:for-each select="p">
            <xsl:sort select="named-content" data-type="text" order="ascending" case-order= "upper-first"/>
            <xsl:copy>
                <xsl:apply-templates/>
            </xsl:copy>
        </xsl:for-each>
    </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Result

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
  <p>B.K.B. v Maui Police Dep’t (9th Cir 2002) 276 F3d 1091:</p>
  <p>BTS, USA, Inc. v Executive Perspectives, LLC (Conn. Super, Oct. 16, 2014, No. X10CV116010685) 2014 Conn Super Lexis 2644, aff’d (Conn App 2016) 142 A3d 342:</p>
  <p>Babcock v Butler County (3d Cir 2015) 806 F3d 153:</p>
  <p>Buxbom v Smith (1944) 23 C2d 535:</p>
  <p>Byrd v Roadway Express, Inc. (5th Cir 1982) 687 F2d 85:</p>
  <p>buySAFE, Inc. v Google, Inc. (Fed Cir 2014) 765 F3d 1350:</p>
</root>

---

Added:

I too do not understand what logic you want to implement to get the output you show.

I am able to get the same output by sorting the nodes in the following order:

• nodes that begin with initials come first;
• then sort alphabetically, ignoring case.

XSLT 2.0

<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" 
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

<!-- identity transform -->
<xsl:template match="@*|node()">
    <xsl:copy>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
    </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="/root">
    <xsl:copy>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="p">
            <xsl:sort select="number(matches(named-content, '^[A-Z](\.|[A-Z]|$)'))" data-type="number" order="descending"/>
            <xsl:sort select="named-content" data-type="text" order="ascending" lang="en"/>
        </xsl:apply-templates>
    </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

---

Demo: https://xsltfiddle.liberty-development.net/a9GPfN

</xsl:stylesheet>

Answer 2

Not sure I get your question, is this what you are trying to do :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    version="2.0">

  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

  <xsl:template match="root">
      <xsl:copy>
          <xsl:apply-templates select="p">
              <xsl:sort select="named-content"/>
          </xsl:apply-templates>
      </xsl:copy>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="@*|node()">
    <xsl:copy>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
    </xsl:copy>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

See it working here : https://xsltfiddle.liberty-development.net/bEzknsV

Answer 3

Does the following meet your requirements? (Requirements were hard to understand. I assume there is more simple and faster XSLT code to accomplish this task ...)

It evaluates for the given input to the expected output https://xsltfiddle.liberty-development.net/pNmC4J7

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    exclude-result-prefixes="#all"
    version="2.0">

  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

    <xsl:template match="@*|node()">
      <xsl:copy>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
      </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:key name="psStartingWithChar" match="p" use="upper-case(substring(translate(named-content/text(), translate(named-content/text(), 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz', ''), ''),1,1))"/>

    <xsl:template match="root">
        <xsl:variable name="ctxt">
            <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
        </xsl:variable>

        <xsl:variable name="temp">
            <xsl:for-each select="string-to-codepoints('ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ')">
                <xsl:variable name="ch" select="codepoints-to-string(.)"/>

                <xsl:variable name="root">
                    <xsl:for-each select="$ctxt">
                        <root>
                            <xsl:for-each select="key('psStartingWithChar',$ch)">
                                <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
                            </xsl:for-each>
                        </root>
                    </xsl:for-each>
                </xsl:variable>

                <xsl:for-each select="$root/root">
                    <xsl:copy>
                        <xsl:for-each select="p[named-content[@content-type='emEntry'][string-length(.)=1 or matches(translate(., translate(., 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz', ''), ''), '^([^a-z]{2,})')]]">
                            <xsl:sort data-type="text" order="ascending"/>
                            <xsl:copy>
                                <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
                            </xsl:copy>
                        </xsl:for-each>
                        <xsl:for-each select="p[named-content[@content-type='emEntry'][not(string-length(.)=1 or matches(translate(., translate(., 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz', ''), ''), '^([^a-z]{2,})'))]]">
                            <xsl:sort data-type="text" case-order= "upper-first" order="ascending"/>
                            <xsl:copy>
                                <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
                            </xsl:copy>
                        </xsl:for-each>
                    </xsl:copy>
                </xsl:for-each>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </xsl:variable>

        <root>
            <xsl:copy-of select="$temp/root/*"/>
        </root>
   </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>