Applying a named template to arbitrary content

[Iain Huxley <iain at mindspike dot com>]

Hi --

I've spent a fair while searching for a solution to a seemingly simple 
problem, perhaps someone could help me out...

I'm trying to make a generic template which will, in effect, simply insert 
stuff before and after the content.  In one case, I want to do it to apply 
font styling parameters etc. where needed:

e.g.
     ...
     <font size="4" color="#ffffff">
       <b>
         ...content...
       </b>
     </font>
     ..

The catch is that I want the content to be arbitrary - sometimes it would 
simply be <xsl:apply-templates/>, sometimes it might be a call to another 
named template, or it might be a series of elements and text.

The closest I've got is by always calling <xsl:apply-templates/> within the 
template

e.g.

<xsl:template name="FontAppearance">
     <font size="4" color="#ffffff">
       <b>
         <xsl:apply-templates/>
       </b>
     </font>
</xsl:template>

usage:
<xsl:call-template name="FontAppearance"/>

however, this isn't great since I want to be able to apply the style to 
anything, such as a call to a named template.

In order to solve this, I tried assigning the desired content to a 
variable, and passing that to the template. (I initally tried putting the 
content directly into the param and using <xsl:value-of select="$content"> 
in the named template, I'm not sure if this should be possible).

e.g.

<xsl:template name="FontAppearance">
   <xsl:param name="content">
     <font size="4" color="#ffffff">
       <b>
         <xsl:copy-of select="$content"/>
       </b>
     </font>
</xsl:template>

usage:
   <xsl:variable name="foo">
     <!-- content example - call index template -->
     <xsl:call-template name="Index"/>
   </xsl:variable>
   <xsl:call-template name="FontAppearance">
     <xsl:param name="content">
      <xsl:value-of select="$foo">
     </xsl:param>
   </xsl:call-template>

However, this doesn't work, and it's very clunky considering how regularly 
I want to use it in my stylesheet anyway.

Here are some examples of how I'd ideally like to use it:

   <xsl:call-template name="FontAppearance_Body1">
     <!-- following would be inserted into the FontAppearance template -->
     <xsl:call-template name="Index"/>
   </xsl:call-template>

   <xsl:call-template name="FontAppearance_Heading1">
    <xsl:value-of select="Title"/>
   </xsl:call-template>

   <xsl:call-template name="FontAppearance_Body2">
    <xsl:apply-templates select="Sections"/>
   </xsl:call-template>


My basic question is - what's the closest I can get to the above 
usage?  Perhaps I've missed something obvious, it seems like it should be 
more straightforward to do what I want.

Thanks in advance,

Iain.


//----------------------------------------------------
// Iain Huxley
// President
// Mindspike Technologies
// http://mindspike.com
// Ph: (510) 339 7789
//----------------------------------------------------


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