String functions

string string(object?)

This function returns the string-value of the argument. If the argument is a node-set, then it returns the string-value of the first node in the set. If the argument is omitted, it returns the string-value of the context node.

string concat(string, string, string...)

This function returns a string containing the concatenation of all its arguments.

boolean starts-with(string, string)

This function returns true if the first string starts with the second string. Otherwise it returns false.

boolean contains(string, string)

This function returns true if the first string contains the second string. Otherwise it returns false.

string substring-before(string, string)

This returns that part of the first string that precedes the second string. It returns the empty string if the second string is not a substring of the first string. If the second string appears multiple times in the first string, then this returns the portion of the first string before the first appearance of the second string.

string substring-after(string, string)

This returns that part of the first string that follows the second string. It returns the empty string if the second string is not a substring of the first string. If the second string appears multiple times in the first string, then this returns the portion of the first string after the initial appearance of the second string.

string substring(string, number, number?)

This returns the substring of the first argument beginning at the second argument and continuing for the number of characters specified by the third argument (or until the end of the string if the third argument is omitted.) Unlike Java, the foirst character is at position 1, not 0.

number string-length(string?)

Returns the number of Unicode characters in the string, or the string-value of the context node if the argument is omitted. This may not be the same as the number returned by the length() method in Java’s String class because XSLT counts characters and Java counts UTF-16 code points.

string normalize-space(string?)

This function strips all leading and trailing white-space from its argument, or the string-value of the context node if the argument is omitted, and condenses all other runs of whitespace to a single space. It’s very useful in XML documents where whitespace is used primarily for formatting.

string translate(string, string, string)

This function replaces all characters in the first string that are found in the second string with the corresponding character from the third string.