The <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	expression	Optional. An XPath expression that specifies the nodes to be sorted
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 1

The example below will sort the output by artist:

<?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>

If you have Netscape 6 or IE 5 or higher you can view: the XML file and the XSL file.

View the result with Netscape 6 or IE 6

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