Hierarchial xml to Flat xml using XSLT

Question

I have xml which is structed like following

<root>
  <PNode>
    <node1>
      <node1Child>data</node1Child>
      <node2Child>data</node2Child>
    </node1>
  </PNode>
  <SecondNode>
    <node1>
      <node1Child>
        <child>data</child>
      </node1Child>
    </node1>
  </SecondNode>
</root>

I want output using genric xslt because i have many xml to convert to this format.

<root>
  <Pnode-node1-node1Child>data</Pnode-node1-node1Child>
  <Pnode-node1-node2Child>data</Pnode-node1-node2Child>
  <SecondNode-node1-node1child-child>data</SecondNode-node1-node1child-child>
</root>

It could be more deep or less.
can I do it by XSLT pls give any example or reference

I want to do it to generate PDF from sql server 2k8 r2 rdl. because rdl do not accept nested xml so need to flatten it.

Answer 1

This transformation:

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

 <xsl:template match="/*">
     <root>
      <xsl:apply-templates/>
     </root>
 </xsl:template>

 <xsl:template match="text()">
  <xsl:variable name="vCompName">
   <xsl:for-each select="ancestor::*[not(position() =last())]">
    <xsl:value-of select="translate(name(), ':', '_')"/>
    <xsl:if test="not(position()=last())">-</xsl:if>
   </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:variable>

  <xsl:element name="{$vCompName}">
   <xsl:value-of select="."/>
  </xsl:element>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when applied on the provided XML document:

<root>
    <PNode>
        <node1>
            <node1Child>data</node1Child>
            <node2Child>data</node2Child>
        </node1>
    </PNode>
    <SecondNode>
        <node1>
            <node1Child>
                <child>data</child>
            </node1Child>
        </node1>
    </SecondNode>
</root>

produces the wanted, correct result:

<root>
   <PNode-node1-node1Child>data</PNode-node1-node1Child>
   <PNode-node1-node2Child>data</PNode-node1-node2Child>
   <SecondNode-node1-node1Child-child>data</SecondNode-node1-node1Child-child>
</root>

Explanation:

1. Besides wrapping the document in a root top element, there is just a single template. It matches any non-whitespace-only text node.

2. The nodeset of all element-ancestors except the first one in document order (which is the last in the reverse axis ancestor::) are string-joined with a '-' character and an element is constructed with this string as a name.

3. Before the string-join operation in 2. above, every name is modified so that any ':' character in it is substituted by an underline character. This makes the transformation not produce invalid compound names if there are namespace prefixes in some names.

4. Finally, the current text node is copied as a child of the dynamically-constructed element.