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How to Sort XML by Elements Using XSLT

How to sort XML by elements using XSLT?

Create an XML document.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="books_sorted.xsl"?>
<books>
   <book>  
	<title ISBN="0321173481" author="Michael R. Sweet">
	OpenGL Programming Guide Fourth Edition</title>		
	<publisher>Addison-Wesley</publisher>
	<year>2004</year>
   </book>
   <book>
	<title ISBN="0849371643" author="Gerald Farin">
	Curves and Surfaces for CAGD: A Practical Guide</title>
	<publisher>Academic Press</publisher>
	<year>2002</year>
   </book>
   <book>
	<title ISBN="1558606696" author="David Rogers">
	An Introduction to NURBS: With Historical Perspective</title>
	<publisher>Academic Press</publisher>
	<year>2001</year>
   </book>
   <book>
	<title ISBN="1568810849" author="Gerald Farin">
	NURBS: From Projective Geometry to Practical Use</title>
	<publisher>A K Peters</publisher>
	<year>1999</year>
   </book>
</books>

Create a XSL stylesheet.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="html" encoding="UTF-8"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<html>
<head><title>Books</title>
</head>
<body>
<table width="100%" border="1">
  <THEAD>
   <TR>
       <TD width="50%"><B>Publisher</B></TD>
       <TD width="50%"><B>Year</B></TD>
   </TR>
  </THEAD> 
  <TBODY>
   <xsl:for-each select="books/book">
    <xsl:sort select="publisher" />
    <TR>	  
       <TD width="50%"><xsl:value-of select="publisher" /></TD>
       <TD width="50%"><xsl:value-of select="year" /></TD>
    </TR>
   </xsl:for-each>
  </TBODY>
</table>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

<xsl:sort> must be placed right after the <xsl:for-each> or <xsl:apply-templates> elements.

<xsl:sort select="publisher" /> sorts the selected elements alphabetically. The default sort mode is ascending and the default data-type is text.

When sorting numbers, make sure to set the data-type attribute of <xsl:sort> to number.

<xsl:sort select="year" data-type="number" order="descending"/> will sort the dates starting from the latest times.

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