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<h1>xsl:for-each</h1>
<p>The <code>xsl:for-each</code> element causes iteration over the nodes selected by a node-set expression.
It can be used as an alternative to <code>xsl:apply-templates</code> where the child nodes of the
current node are known in advance. There is a mandatory attribute, <code>select</code>, which defines
the nodes over which the statement will iterate. The XSLT statements subordinate to the <code>xsl:for-each</code> element
are applied to each source node selected by the node-set expression in turn.</p>
<p>The full syntax of expressions is outlined in <a class="bodylink" href="../expressions/intro.xml">XPath Expression Syntax</a>.</p>
<p>The <code>xsl:for-each</code> element may have one or more <code>xsl:sort</code> child elements to define the order of
sorting. The sort keys are specified in major-to-minor order.</p>
<p>The expression used for sorting can be any string expressions. The following are
particularly useful:</p>
<ul>
<li content="para">
<p>element-name, e.g. TITLE: sorts on the value of a child element</p>
</li>
<li content="para">
<p>attribute-name, e.g. @CODE: sorts on the value of an attribute</p>
</li>
<li content="para">
<p>".": sorts on the character content of the element</p>
</li>
<li content="para">
<p>"qname(.)": sorts on the name of the element</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Example 1:</p>
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style="border: solid thin; background-color: #B1CCC7; padding: 2px">
<pre>
<code><xsl:template match="BOOKLIST">
<TABLE>
<xsl:for-each select="BOOK">
<TR>
<TD><xsl:value-of select="TITLE"/></TD>
<TD><xsl:value-of select="AUTHOR"/></TD>
<TD><xsl:value-of select="ISBN"/></TD>
</TR>
</xsl:for-each>
</TABLE>
</xsl:template></code>
</pre>
</div>
<p>Example 2: sorting with xsl:for-each. This example also shows a template for a BOOKLIST
element which processes all the child BOOK elements in order of their child AUTHOR elements.</p>
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style="border: solid thin; background-color: #B1CCC7; padding: 2px">
<pre>
<code><xsl:template match="BOOKLIST">
<h2>
<xsl:for-each select="BOOK">
<xsl:sort select="AUTHOR"/>
<p>AUTHOR: <xsl:value-of select="AUTHOR"/></p>
<p>TITLE: <xsl:value-of select="TITLE"/></p>
<hr/>
</xsl:for-each>
</h2>
</xsl:template></code>
</pre>
</div>
<p>Saxon-EE offers an extension to the <code>xsl:for-each</code> instruction: the <code>saxon:threads</code>
attribute allows the items in the input sequence to be processed in parallel. For details see
<a class="bodylink" href="../extensions/attributes/threads.xml">saxon:threads</a>.</p>
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