XSLT <xsl:sort>
XSLT <xsl:sort>
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 | Required/Optional | 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
Consider the following example about a bookstore:
books.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="books.xsl"?>
<bookstore>
<book category="children">
<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
<author>J K. Rowling</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>29.99</price>
</book>
<book category="web">
<title lang="en">XQuery Tips</title>
<author>Tom Nolan</author>
<year>2022</year>
<price>39.99</price>
</book>
<book category="web">
<title lang="en">Learn XML</title>
<author>Tutorial Reference</author>
<year>2022</year>
<price>9.99</price>
</book>
</bookstore>
This code will sort the output by author:
books.xsl
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="/">
<html>
<body>
<h2>The bookstore</h2>
<table border="1">
<tr bgcolor="#6565d5">
<th>Title</th>
<th>Author</th>
</tr>
<xsl:for-each select="bookstore/book">
<xsl:sort select="author"/>
<tr>
<td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="author"/></td>
</tr>
</xsl:for-each>
</table>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>