xsl:evaluate
Allows dynamic evaluation of XPath expressions constructed as a string.
Category: instruction
Content: (
xsl:with-param
| xsl:fallback
)*
Permitted parent elements:
any XSLT element whose content model is sequence
constructor; any literal result element
Attributes
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An XPath expression which is evaluated to return the target expression as a string. |
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Defines the required type of the result of the
XPath expression. Defaults to |
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The base URI for the target expression. Defaults to the base URI of the stylesheet instruction. |
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An expression returning a node;
the in-scope namespaces of this node define the namespace context for the XPath
expression. Defaults to the namespace context of the |
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If |
Notes on the Saxon implementation
The instruction has been implemented since Saxon 9.3 with the exception that
functions available only in XSLT, such as key(), cannot be used in
the target XPath expression. The instruction is fully implemented in Saxon
9.6.
Details
The xsl:evaluate instruction allows dynamic evaluation of XPath
expressions in the same way as the saxon:evaluate() extension function
that has been available in Saxon for many years.
The functionality is available as an XSLT instruction, rather than a function, to allow more flexibility in the syntax, in particular the ability to define parameters using xsl:with-param child elements.
The instruction may take an xsl:fallback to define fallback behaviour when using an XSLT 2.0 (or 1.0) processor.
Examples
Sorting product elements according to a sort key supplied (in the form of an XPath expression) as a parameter to the stylesheet:
<xsl:apply-templates select="product"> <xsl:sort> <xsl:evaluate select="$product-sort-key"/> </xsl:sort> </xsl:apply-templates>