xslt 1.0 string replace function

Question

I have a string "aa::bb::aa"

and need to turn it in to "aa, bb, aa"

I have tried

translate(string,':',', ') 

but this returns "aa,,bb,,aa"

How can this be done.

Answer 1

A very simple solution (that will work as long as your string value doesn't have spaces):

translate(normalize-space(translate('aa::bb::cc',':',' ')),' ',',') 

1. translate ":' into " "
2. normalize-space() to collapse multiple whitespace characters into a single space " "
3. translate single spaces " " into ","

A more robust solution would be to use a recursive template:

<xsl:template name="replace-string">     <xsl:param name="text"/>     <xsl:param name="replace"/>     <xsl:param name="with"/>     <xsl:choose>       <xsl:when test="contains($text,$replace)">         <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($text,$replace)"/>         <xsl:value-of select="$with"/>         <xsl:call-template name="replace-string">           <xsl:with-param name="text" select="substring-after($text,$replace)"/>           <xsl:with-param name="replace" select="$replace"/>           <xsl:with-param name="with" select="$with"/>         </xsl:call-template>       </xsl:when>       <xsl:otherwise>         <xsl:value-of select="$text"/>       </xsl:otherwise>     </xsl:choose>   </xsl:template> 

You can use it like this:

<xsl:call-template name="replace-string">   <xsl:with-param name="text" select="'aa::bb::cc'"/>   <xsl:with-param name="replace" select="'::'" />   <xsl:with-param name="with" select="','"/> </xsl:call-template>