Getting the parent node attributes in XSL

Question

In my XML I have the following:

<a>
  <b>
    <c something="false">
      <d>
        <e>
          <f>someResult</f>
        </e>
      </d>
    </c>
  </b>
</a>

Now in the XSL within a loop I can do the following:

<xsl:value-of select="f"></xsl:value-of>

But how can I get the attribute in c?

I've tried doing the following

<xsl:value-of select="////@something"></xsl:value-of>

As well as trying parent and nothing seems to be working. Can you get parent nodes like this?

Also, I cannot just do:

<xsl:value-of select="/a/b/c/@something"></xsl:value-of>

As there can be multiple of c.

Answer 1

To move up the tree you use ".." per level ie in this instance probably

select="../../../@something" 

You can also select an ancestor node by name (approx)

select="ancestor::c[1]/@something"   

See http://www.stackoverflow.com/questions/3672992 for further examples

Answer 2

Use:

ancestor::c[1]/@something 

This selects the attribute named something of the first (from the current node upwards) ancestor named c.