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XSLT <xsl:sort> Element

Definition and Usage

The <xsl:sort> element is used to sort the output.

Note: <xsl:sort> is always within <xsl:for-each> or <xsl:apply-templates>.

Syntax

<xsl:sort select="expression"
lang="language-code"
data-type="text|number|qname"
order="ascending|descending"
case-order="upper-first|lower-first"/>

Attributes

Attribute	Value	Description
select	XPath-expression	Optional. Specifies which node/node-set to sort on
lang	language-code	Optional. Specifies which language is to be used by the sort
data-type	text number qname	Optional. Specifies the data-type of the data to be sorted. Default is "text"
order	ascending descending	Optional. Specifies the sort order. Default is "ascending"
case-order	upper-first lower-first	Optional. Specifies whether upper- or lowercase letters are to be ordered first

Example

The example below will sort the output by artist:

Example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:template match="/">
<html>
<body>
<h2>My CD Collection</h2>
<table border="1">
    <tr bgcolor="#9acd32">
      <th>Title</th>
      <th>Artist</th>
    </tr>
    <xsl:for-each select="catalog/cd">
      <xsl:sort select="artist"/>
      <tr>
        <td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
        <td><xsl:value-of select="artist"/></td>
      </tr>
    </xsl:for-each>
</table>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Try it yourself »

XSLT Element Reference