How to select the smallest value from a bunch of variables?

Question

Assume I have variables $a, $b, $c and $d which all hold numbers. I would like to get the smallest (largest) value. My typical XSLT 1.0 approach to this is

<xsl:variable name="minimum">
  <xsl:for-each select="$a | $b | $c | $d">
    <xsl:sort
      select="."
      data-type="number"
      order="ascending" />
    <xsl:if test="position()=1"><xsl:value-of select="." /></xsl:if>
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:variable>

However, my xslt 1.0 processor complains with

runtime error: file stylesheet.xslt line 106 element for-each
The 'select' expression does not evaluate to a node set.

How can I compute the minimum (maximum) of the given values?

---

Of course, I could use a long series of <xsl:when> statements and check all combinations, but I'd rather like a smaller solution.

Answer 1

If the variables have statically defined values (not dynamically computed), then something like the following can be done with XSLT 1.0:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
 <xsl:output method="text"/>

 <xsl:variable name="vA" select="3"/>
 <xsl:variable name="vB" select="1"/>
 <xsl:variable name="vC" select="9"/>
 <xsl:variable name="vD" select="5"/>

 <xsl:template match="/">
     <xsl:for-each select=
      "document('')/*/xsl:variable
         [contains('|vA|vB|vC|vD|', concat('|', @name, '|'))]
           /@select
      ">
      <xsl:sort data-type="number" order="ascending"/>

      <xsl:if test="position() = 1">
       Smallest: <xsl:value-of select="."/>
      </xsl:if>
      <xsl:if test="position() = last()">
       Largest: <xsl:value-of select="."/>
      </xsl:if>
     </xsl:for-each>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

When this transformation is applied on any XML document (not used), the wanted, correct result is produced:

   Smallest: 1
   Largest: 9

---

II. Now, suppose the variables are dynamically defined.

We can do something like this (but need the xxx:node-set() extension function):

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
 xmlns:ext="http://exslt.org/common">
 <xsl:output method="text"/>

 <xsl:variable name="vA" select="number(/*/*[3])"/>
 <xsl:variable name="vB" select="number(/*/*[1])"/>
 <xsl:variable name="vC" select="number(/*/*[9])"/>
 <xsl:variable name="vD" select="number(/*/*[5])"/>

 <xsl:template match="/">
     <xsl:variable name="vrtfStore">
       <num><xsl:value-of select="$vA"/></num>
       <num><xsl:value-of select="$vB"/></num>
       <num><xsl:value-of select="$vC"/></num>
       <num><xsl:value-of select="$vD"/></num>
     </xsl:variable>

     <xsl:for-each select="ext:node-set($vrtfStore)/*">
      <xsl:sort data-type="number" order="ascending"/>

      <xsl:if test="position() = 1">
       Smallest: <xsl:value-of select="."/>
      </xsl:if>
      <xsl:if test="position() = last()">
       Largest: <xsl:value-of select="."/>
      </xsl:if>
     </xsl:for-each>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when this transformation is applied on the following XML document:

<nums>
  <num>01</num>
  <num>02</num>
  <num>03</num>
  <num>04</num>
  <num>05</num>
  <num>06</num>
  <num>07</num>
  <num>08</num>
  <num>09</num>
  <num>10</num>
</nums>

the wanted, correct result is produced:

   Smallest: 1
   Largest: 9