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XSLT <xsl:sort>

How to use the <xsl:sort> element in XSLT to organize and sort node-sets within <xsl:for-each> or <xsl:apply-templates> with attributes like select, order, and data-type.

XSLT <xsl:sort>

The <xsl:sort> element is used to sort the output.

Syntax


<xsl:sort select="expression"
          lang="language-code"
          data-type="text|number|qname"
          order="ascending|descending"
          case-order="upper-first|lower-first"/>

Attributes

Attribute Value Required/Optional Description
select XPath-expression Optional Specifies which node/node-set to sort on
lang language-code Optional Specifies which language is to be used by the sort
data-type text | number | qname Optional Specifies the data-type of the data to be sorted. Default is "text"
order ascending | descending Optional Specifies the sort order. Default is "ascending"
case-order upper-first | lower-first Optional Specifies whether upper- or lowercase letters are to be ordered first

Example

Consider the following example about a bookstore:

books.xmlxml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="books.xsl"?>

<bookstore>
	<book category="children">
		<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
		<author>J K. Rowling</author>
		<year>2005</year>
		<price>29.99</price>
	</book>
	<book category="web">
		<title lang="en">XQuery Tips</title>
		<author>Tom Nolan</author>
		<year>2022</year>
		<price>39.99</price>
	</book>
	<book category="web">
		<title lang="en">Learn XML</title>
		<author>Tutorial Reference</author>
		<year>2022</year>
		<price>9.99</price>
	</book>
</bookstore>

This code will sort the output by author:

books.xslxml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:template match="/">
  <html>
  <body>
  <h2>The bookstore</h2>
  <table border="1">
    <tr bgcolor="#6565d5">
      <th>Title</th>
      <th>Author</th>
    </tr>
    <xsl:for-each select="bookstore/book">
      <xsl:sort select="author"/>
      <tr>
        <td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
        <td><xsl:value-of select="author"/></td>
      </tr>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </table>
  </body>
  </html>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>
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