flat xml -> nested list via xslt

(application's xml output can't be changed...)

[bedlam]

Hiya,

I'm working with the xml output of an application which, unfortunately, is not hierarchical, though it arguably describes a hierarchy. Nevertheless, I would like to xslt it to a series of nested unordered lists.

The (simplified) xml looks like this:

<item> 
 <position>1</position> 
 <name>Top Level</name> 
</item> 
<item> 
 <position>2</position> 
 <name>Second Level</name> 
</item> 
<item> 
 <position>1</position> 
 <name>Top Level</name> 
</item> 
<item> 
 <position>2</position> 
 <name>Second Level</name> 
</item> 
<item> 
 <position>3</position> 
 <name>Third Level</name> 
</item> 
<item> 
 <position>3</position> 
 <name>Third Level</name> 
</item> 
<item> 
 <position>2</position> 
 <name>Second Level</name> 
</item> 
<item> 
 <position>1</position> 
 <name>Top Level</name> 
</item> 

...and I would like to translate it to this:

<ul> 
<li>Top Level 
<ul> 
<li>Second Level</li> 
</ul> 
</li> 
<li>Top Level 
<ul> 
<li>Second Level 
<ul> 
<li>Third Level</li> 
<li>Third Level</li> 
<li>Third Level</li> 
</ul> 
</li> 
<li>Second Level</li> 
</ul> 
</li> 
</ul> 

I've tried a couple of approaches, but the main problem is getting the opening and closing <ul> into the <li> of a parent item.

The best idea I thought I had was to use an

if

to test if the current item's <position> was greater than that of it's

preceding-sibling

, and then output the desired value like this:

<ul><li><xsl:value-of select="name"/></li>

...and do a similar job where the current item's <position> was less than the

preceding-sibling

's <position>. Unfortunately, this stops the parser since it is invalid...

Can anyone suggest an approach?

-B

[macrost]

bedlam,
Do you happen to have any code yet? I don't have an xsl/xml editor here at the office, so if you could post some code, I might be able to help ya out.

Mac