XSLT string replace

Question

I don't really know XSL but I need to fix this code, I have reduced it to make it simpler.
I am getting this error

Invalid XSLT/XPath function

on this line

<xsl:variable name="text" select="replace($text,'a','b')"/> 

This is the XSL

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"     xmlns:inm="http://www.inmagic.com/webpublisher/query" version="1.0">     <xsl:output method="text" encoding="UTF-8" />      <xsl:preserve-space elements="*" />     <xsl:template match="text()" />      <xsl:template match="mos">         <xsl:apply-templates />          <xsl:for-each select="mosObj">           'Notes or subject'             <xsl:call-template                 name="rem-html">                 <xsl:with-param name="text" select="SBS_ABSTRACT" />             </xsl:call-template>         </xsl:for-each>     </xsl:template>      <xsl:template name="rem-html">         <xsl:param name="text" />         <xsl:variable name="text" select="replace($text, 'a', 'b')" />     </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> 

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with it?

Answer 1

replace isn't available for XSLT 1.0.

Codesling has a template for string-replace you can use as a substitute for the function:

<xsl:template name="string-replace-all">     <xsl:param name="text" />     <xsl:param name="replace" />     <xsl:param name="by" />     <xsl:choose>         <xsl:when test="$text = '' or $replace = ''or not($replace)" >             <!-- Prevent this routine from hanging -->             <xsl:value-of select="$text" />         </xsl:when>         <xsl:when test="contains($text, $replace)">             <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($text,$replace)" />             <xsl:value-of select="$by" />             <xsl:call-template name="string-replace-all">                 <xsl:with-param name="text" select="substring-after($text,$replace)" />                 <xsl:with-param name="replace" select="$replace" />                 <xsl:with-param name="by" select="$by" />             </xsl:call-template>         </xsl:when>         <xsl:otherwise>             <xsl:value-of select="$text" />         </xsl:otherwise>     </xsl:choose> </xsl:template> 

invoked as:

<xsl:variable name="newtext">     <xsl:call-template name="string-replace-all">         <xsl:with-param name="text" select="$text" />         <xsl:with-param name="replace" select="a" />         <xsl:with-param name="by" select="b" />     </xsl:call-template> </xsl:variable> 

On the other hand, if you literally only need to replace one character with another, you can call translate which has a similar signature. Something like this should work fine:

<xsl:variable name="newtext" select="translate($text,'a','b')"/> 

Also, note, in this example, I changed the variable name to "newtext", in XSLT variables are immutable, so you can't do the equivalent of $foo = $foo like you had in your original code.

Answer 2

Here is the XSLT function which will work similar to the String.Replace() function of C#.

This template has the 3 Parameters as below

text :- your main string

replace :- the string which you want to replace

by :- the string which will reply by new string

Below are the Template

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

Below sample shows how to call it

<xsl:variable name="myVariable ">   <xsl:call-template name="string-replace-all">     <xsl:with-param name="text" select="'This is a {old} text'" />     <xsl:with-param name="replace" select="'{old}'" />     <xsl:with-param name="by" select="'New'" />   </xsl:call-template> </xsl:variable> 

You can also refer the below URL for the details.