How can I concatenate all of these XML tags into one larger tag of the same name with XSLT?

Question

I am transforming this XML:

<root>
  <contrib contrib-type="author">
    <name>
      <last-name>Kottke</last-name>
      <first-name>Leo</first-name>
    </name>
  </contrib>

  <contrib contrib-type="author">
    <name>
      <last-name>McKee</last-name>
      <first-name>Andy</first-name>
    </name>
  </contrib>

  <contrib contrib-type="author">
    <name>
      <last-name>Hedges</last-name>
      <first-name>Michael</first-name>
    </name>
  </contrib>
</root>

...with this XSL:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes" method="xml"/>
    <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

    <!-- identity rule -->
    <xsl:template match="node()|@*">
        <xsl:copy>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>
        </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>

        <!-- Authors -->
        <xsl:template match="contrib[@contrib-type='author']">
            <Authors>
              <xsl:if test="position() != last()">
                <xsl:value-of select = "concat(name/first-name, ' ', name/last-name, ', ')" />
              </xsl:if>

              <xsl:if test="position() = last()">
                <xsl:value-of select = "concat('and ', name/first-name, ' ', name/last-name, '.')" />
              </xsl:if>
            </Authors>
        </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

...and am getting this output:

<root>
    <Authors>Leo Kottke, </Authors>
    <Authors>Andy McKee, </Authors>
    <Authors>and Michael Hedges.</Authors>
</root>

---

---

However, I am trying to concatenate all of the  Author  tags into one larger  Author  tag, so that the output would resemble this:

<root>
    <Authors>Leo Kottke, Andy McKee, and Michael Hedges.</Authors>
</root>

Do I need to use a  for-each  loop in some way?

Answer 1

No xsl:for-each needed. Just add a template for /* (or /root) and remove Authors from your contrib match:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes" method="xml"/>
    <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

    <!-- identity rule -->
    <xsl:template match="node()|@*">
        <xsl:copy>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>
        </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="/root">
        <xsl:copy>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="@*"/>
            <Authors>
                <xsl:apply-templates select="contrib[@contrib-type='author']"/>
            </Authors>
        </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>

    <!-- Authors -->
    <xsl:template match="contrib[@contrib-type='author']">
        <xsl:if test="position() != last()">
            <xsl:value-of select = "concat(name/first-name, ' ', name/last-name, ', ')" />
        </xsl:if>

        <xsl:if test="position() = last()">
            <xsl:value-of select = "concat('and ', name/first-name, ' ', name/last-name, '.')" />
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>