How can I convert a string to upper- or lower-case with XSLT?

Question

In XSLT 1.0 the upper-case() and lower-case() functions are not available. If you're using a 1.0 stylesheet the common method of case conversion is translate():

<xsl:variable name="lowercase" select="'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'" />
<xsl:variable name="uppercase" select="'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'" />


<xsl:template match="/">
  <xsl:value-of select="translate(doc, $lowercase, $uppercase)" />
</xsl:template>

XSLT 2.0 has upper-case() and lower-case() functions. In case of XSLT 1.0, you can use translate():

<xsl:value-of select="translate("xslt", "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz", "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ")" />

.NET XSLT implementation allows to write custom managed functions in the stylesheet. For lower-case() it can be:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" xmlns:utils="urn:myExtension" exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl">

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

  <msxsl:script implements-prefix="utils" language="C#">
    <![CDATA[
      public string ToLower(string stringValue)
      {
        string result = String.Empty;

        if(!String.IsNullOrEmpty(stringValue))
        {
          result = stringValue.ToLower(); 
        }

        return result;
      }
    ]]>
  </msxsl:script>

  <!-- using of our custom function -->
  <lowercaseValue>
    <xsl:value-of select="utils:ToLower($myParam)"/>
  </lowercaseValue>

Assume, that can be slow, but still acceptable.

Do not forget to enable embedded scripts support for transform:

// Create the XsltSettings object with script enabled.
XsltSettings xsltSettings = new XsltSettings(false, true);

XslCompiledTransform xslt = new XslCompiledTransform();

// Load stylesheet
xslt.Load(xsltPath, xsltSettings, new XmlUrlResolver());

<xsl:variable name="upper">UPPER CASE</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="lower" select="translate($upper,'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz')"/>
<xsl:value-of select ="$lower"/>

//displays UPPER CASE as upper case

For ANSI character encoding:

 translate(//variable, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝÞŸŽŠŒ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöøùúûüýþÿžšœ')