XSL Methods

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XSL provides a set of methods for common counting and datatype formatting tasks. These methods are implemented by the XTLRuntime object, and can be called directly from within the xsl:eval and xsl:script elements in your style sheet.

For example, the following fragment from an XSL file shows how to transform chapter/title input into a numbered table of contents in HTML using the built-in methods formatIndex and childNumber.

<xsl:for-each select="chapter">
  <H2>
    Chapter <xsl:eval>formatIndex(childNumber(this), "I")</xsl:eval>:
  <xsl:value-of select="title"/>
  </H2>
  <xsl:apply-templates />
</xsl:for-each>

XSL Built-in Methods

absoluteChildNumber	Returns the number of the node relative to all siblings.
ancestorChildNumber	Returns the number of the nearest ancestor of a node with the requested node name.
childNumber	Returns the number of the node relative to siblings of the same node name.
depth	Returns the depth within the document tree at which the specified node appears.
formatDate	Formats the supplied date using the specified formatting options.
formatIndex	Formats the supplied integer using the specified numerical system.
formatNumber	Formats the supplied number using the specified format.
formatTime	Formats the supplied time using the specified formatting options.
uniqueID	Returns the unique identifier for the supplied node.