Using XSLT Apply-Templates to conditionally select nodes

Question

Let's say I have an xml document like this:

<director>
    <play>
        <t>Nutcracker</t>
        <a>Tom Cruise</a>
    </play>
    <play>
        <t>Nutcracker</t>
        <a>Robin Williams</a>
    </play>
    <play>
        <t>Grinch Stole Christmas</t>
        <a>Will Smith</a>
    </play>
    <play>
        <t>Grinch Stole Christmas</t>
        <a>Mel Gibson</a>
    </play>
</director>

Now I want to be able to select all the plays with Will Smith as an actor and reformat it into something like this:

<Plays>
    <Play title="Grinch Stole Christmas">
       <star>Will Smith</star>
       <star>Mel Gibson</star>
    </Play>
</Plays>

I only want to use apply-templates.. No xsl:if or for each loops (I have contrived this example as a simpler version of what I'm doing so you can help me understand how to use xpath within a match statement)

Here is what I have so far:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" />
        <xsl:template match="/director">
                <Plays>
                <xsl:apply-templates select="play"/>
                </Plays>
        </xsl:template>

        <xsl:template match="play[a='Will Smith']">
                <play title="{data(t)[1]}">
                <xsl:apply-templates select="a"/>
                </play>
        </xsl:template>

        <xsl:template match="a">
                <star>
                <xsl:value-of select="."/>
                </star>
        </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Basically I am just unsure of how to filter out nodes using XPath in the match attribute of the template. Any help would be great!

Answer 1

The condition should be on xsl:apply-templates instead of xsl:template:

<Plays>
  <xsl:apply-templates select="play[a='Will Smith']">"/>
</Plays>

In your solution, you are transforming ALL <play> nodes. For play nodes that match the condition, your template is applied. But for those that don't match the condition, a default template ("identity transform") is applied instead.

Alternatively, you could keep the condition on xsl:template match, but add another template for <play> that do not match the condition, to transform those <play> into nothing:

    <xsl:template match="play[a='Will Smith']">
      <play title="{data(t)[1]}">
        <xsl:apply-templates select="a"/>
      </play>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="play">
    </xsl:template>