XSL grouped loop

Today I had to do something that sounded trivial... and in fact it is !

What if you have some XML data :

...
                <Brands>
                  <Brand Id="24416" Type="shirts">
                        <Name>SHirtie</Name>
                    </Brand>
                    <Brand Id="25061" Type="shorts">
                        <Name>Shortie</Name>
                    </Brand>
                    <Brand Id="24375"Type ="hats">
                        <Name>Hattie</Name>
                    </Brand>
                    <Brand Id="27129"Type ="shirts">
                        <Name>Shirtie 2</Name>
                    </Brand>
                </Brands>
...

...and we nee to group on the Brands/Brand[@Type] (unsorted) to show a grid per type.

shirts	SHirtie Shirtie 2
shorts	Shortie
hats	Hattie

"How To...?"

XSLT has a magic function for it :  xsl:for-each-group
Let's make a template to rock'n "rule" this :

    <xsl:template name="GroupByBrand">
      <xsl:param name="brands"/>
     
          <xsl:for-each-group select="$brands/Brand" group-by="@Type">
           
            <TABLE width="100%" BORDER="1">
                <TR>
                  <TD><xsl:value-of  select="current-grouping-key()" /></TD>
                  <TD>                 
                     <xsl:for-each select="current-group()">
                        <xsl:value-of select="Name"/>
                        <BR />
                     </xsl:for-each>
                   </TD>
                <TR>
             </TABLE>
         
          </xsl:for-each-group>
       
        </xsl:template>

..and it should do it pretty much.

To resume :
- we loop on each 'Brand' and group by 'Type' attribute (of the Brand).
- in the first cell we put the grouping key ('Type' attribute of the current Brand)
- in the second cell, we loop the Brand of the current group and display their name

A simple example and you're already gone!

Go for it and have some XSL-ent fun!

Cheers