How to organize entries of XML

Question

XML:

Answer 1

Given the following input:

XML

<root>
    <tfLink01>Link #2</tfLink01>
    <mOrder>2</mOrder>
    <tfText01 />
    <cfSM1>false</cfSM1>
    <tf1SLink01 />
    <tf1SText01 />
    <tf2SLink01 />
    <tf2SText01 />
    <tf3SLink01 />
    <tf3SText01 />

    <tfLink02>Link #1</tfLink02>
    <mOrder>1</mOrder>
    <tfText02 />
    <cfSM2>false</cfSM2>
    <tf1SLink02 />
    <tf1SText02 />
    <tf2SLink02 />
    <tf2SText02 />
    <tf3SLink02 />
    <tf3SText02 />

    <tfLink03>Link #3</tfLink03>
    <mOrder>3</mOrder>
    <tfText03 />
    <cfSM3>false</cfSM3>
    <tf1SLink03 />
    <tf1SText03 />
    <tf2SLink03 />
    <tf2SText03 />
    <tf3SLink03 />
    <tf3SText03 />
</root>

the following stylehseet:

XSLT 1.0

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

<xsl:template match="/root">
    <ul>
        <xsl:for-each select="mOrder">
            <xsl:sort/>
            <li>
                <xsl:value-of select="preceding-sibling::*[1]"/>
            </li>
        </xsl:for-each>
    </ul>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

will return:

<ul>
  <li>Link #1</li>
  <li>Link #2</li>
  <li>Link #3</li>
</ul>

---

Note:

You can capture the ordinal number in a variable, for example:

<xsl:variable name="ordinal" select="substring-after(name(preceding-sibling::*[1]), 'tfLink')" />

and use it to address additional nodes by their name, instead of by their position in the "block".

---

Added:

For an input where the mOrder nodes are also numbered, i.e.:

XML

<root>
    <tfLink01>Link #2</tfLink01>
    <mOrder1>2</mOrder1>
    <tfText01 />
    <cfSM1>false</cfSM1>
    <tf1SLink01 />
    <tf1SText01 />
    <tf2SLink01 />
    <tf2SText01 />
    <tf3SLink01 />
    <tf3SText01 />

    <tfLink02>Link #1</tfLink02>
    <mOrder2>1</mOrder2>
    <tfText02 />
    <cfSM2>false</cfSM2>
    <tf1SLink02 />
    <tf1SText02 />
    <tf2SLink02 />
    <tf2SText02 />
    <tf3SLink02 />
    <tf3SText02 />

    <tfLink03>Link #3</tfLink03>
    <mOrder3>3</mOrder3>
    <tfText03 />
    <cfSM3>false</cfSM3>
    <tf1SLink03 />
    <tf1SText03 />
    <tf2SLink03 />
    <tf2SText03 />
    <tf3SLink03 />
    <tf3SText03 />
</root>

you can use:

<xsl:template match="/root">
    <ul>
        <xsl:for-each select="*[starts-with(name(), 'tfLink')]">
            <xsl:sort select="following-sibling::*[1]"/>
            <li>
                <xsl:value-of select="."/>
            </li>
        </xsl:for-each>
    </ul>
</xsl:template>

Answer 2

It is better if you structure your XML like this (omitted unused fields for brevity):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
  <grp>
    <tfLink>Link #2</tfLink>
    <mOrder>2</mOrder>
  </grp>
  <grp>
    <tfLink>Link #1</tfLink>
    <mOrder>1</mOrder>
  </grp>
  <grp>
    <tfLink>Link #3</tfLink>
    <mOrder>3</mOrder>
  </grp>
</root>

Your XSLT then becomes:

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

  <xsl:template match="/root">
    <div class="hidOverflow vertAlignT setCenter smallPadBottom">
      <div id="dvExpProvHolder" class="hidOverflow innerDivCenter">
        <ul class="uSPStyle" id="uSPStyle">

          <xsl:for-each select="grp">
            <xsl:sort select="mOrder" />
            <li>
              <a class="tfLink clickMe" title="{tfLink}"  href="javascript:void(0);"
                 data-toggle='collapse' data-target="#{generate-id()}">
                <xsl:value-of select="tfLink" />
              </a>
            </li>
          </xsl:for-each>

        </ul>
      </div>
    </div>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

I've also modified the data-toggle (I assume it's Bootstrap) to name the class it should toggle (collapse as an example), and the data-target to use generate-id(), which you should use when generating the content to be acted upon.

The XML resulting from the above is this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<div class="hidOverflow vertAlignT setCenter smallPadBottom">
  <div id="dvExpProvHolder" class="hidOverflow innerDivCenter">
    <ul class="uSPStyle" id="uSPStyle">
      <li>
        <a class="tfLink clickMe" title="Link #1" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#idp31396560" href="javascript:void(0);">Link #1</a>
      </li>
      <li>
        <a class="tfLink clickMe" title="Link #2" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#idp31377232" href="javascript:void(0);">Link #2</a>
      </li>
      <li>
        <a class="tfLink clickMe" title="Link #3" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#idp31398000" href="javascript:void(0);">Link #3</a>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</div>

If you need to set attributes on the first element in the xsl:for-each, you can use this in the XSLT:

<xsl:for-each ...>
    <xsl:sort .../>
    <li>
      <xsl:if test="position()=1">
        <xsl:attribute name="class">setCurrent</xsl:attribute>
      </xsl:if>

and similar for the <a>.