Distinct elements and grouping

Question

Given the following xml fragment:

  
    file1
    desc1
  &l         


        

Answer 1

This solution is a little bit simpler, more efficient and at the same time more general than the one presented by Richard:

This transformation:

when applied to the provided XML document:

    
        file1
        desc1
    
    
        file1
        desc2
    
    
        file2
        desc1
    

Produces the wanted result:

   
      
file1
      
desc1
      
desc2
      
file2
      
desc1
   

Do note the simple match pattern of the first and how, using a second , we locate all "Description" elements that are siblings of a "File" element that has a given value.

We could have used more templates instead of pull-processing, however this is a quite simple case and the solution really benefits from shorter, more compact and more readable code.

Also note, that in XSLT 2.0 one will typically use the instruction instead of the Muenchian method.