Referencing column values in a grid is a little different than you may have seen before. When using a standard list you can reference the value of a column using an XSLT variable of the same name ($COLUMNNAME). This is not possible with the grid so it is necessary to access a column with the following XPath expression:
../lxml:column\[@name='COLUMNAME'\]
This is not necessary for referencing the current column (i.e. the column containing the weblet). In this case you can use a single period (.). If you know the position of the column you want to reference, you can use an Xpath expression like this:
../lxml:column\[2\]
This is handy for large lists as it is much faster but it may cause problems if you change the order of the columns in your list.
| Note: All field and column name references in XPath expressions must be uppercase. All references to repository fields must use the object name for the field. |
The XPath expression tells the XSLT processor where to find the column in the XML data output by the Webroutine. Like DOS or Linux file paths, the expression indicates a path to the target data from the current position and, like file paths, a period (.) refers to the current position and two periods (..) refer to the parent.
When processing a weblet in a grid column, the current position in the XML is the <lxml:column> tag for that row and column. An XPath expression like this:
says to go up to the parent <lxml:entry> tag, look for a child <lxml:column> tag with a name attribute of 'EMPNO' and return it. |