XML - XSL - FO XML Dot Leaders Mutliple Occurances

Question

I have hundreds of lines of text, being formatted in an XML doc that I need to output to a PDF and display as:

LEFT TEXT.......................................................................RIGHT TEXT

I discovered how to do this in the XSL, but it is currently running as a processing instruction, during FO output. XSL:

<xsl:template match="processing-instruction('leftrighttext')">
  <fo:block text-align-last="justify">
    <xsl:text>LEFT TEXT</xsl:text>
    <fo:leader leader-pattern="dots"/>
    <xsl:text>RIGHT TEXT</xsl:text>
  </fo:block>

What the XML looks like (being used in a table):

<row>
<entry> <?leftrighttext?> </entry>
</row

Desired Output:

LEFT TEXT........................................................................RIGHT TEXT
NEXT TEXT WITHIN TABLE...........................................................OTHER TEXT

My question is how would I get the "LEFT TEXT" and "RIGHT TEXT" to be called from the XML document, instead of inputting the values directly in the stylesheet, such as:

<row>
<entry>LEFT TEXT <sometag> RIGHT TEXT</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>NEXT TEXT WITHIN TABLE <sometag> OTHER TEXT

Is there a tag I can create, or a string to identify the text before a tag, and the text after, input dot leaders between them?

Any help would be appreciated.

---

Additional Information Requested: I used the XSLT posted in the answer below, here is the XML doc I am trying to transform. I also followed the outline for the XML that wsas posted below. Please let me know what I'm missing...

XML:

<?xml-model href="http://docbook.org/xml/5.0/rng/docbook.rng" schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?>
<?xml-model href="http://docbook.org/xml/5.0/rng/docbook.rng" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://purl.oclc.org/dsdl/schematron"?>
<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
    version="5.0">    
    <table>
        <tgroup cols="2">
            <colspec colnum="1" colname="col1" colwidth="235"/>
            <colspec colnum="2" colname="col2" colwidth="235"/>
            <thead>
                <row>
                    <entry align="center">LSP</entry>
                    <entry align="center">RSP</entry>
                </row>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
                <row>
                    <entry align="center" namest="col1" nameend="col2">(PF) Takeoff Briefing<?leftrighttext?>PERFORM</entry>
                </row>
            </tbody>
        </tgroup>
    </table>
</section>

This is what I have for the beginning of the stylesheet:

XSLT:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:date="http://exslt.org/dates-and-times"
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"
xmlns:d="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
exclude-result-prefixes="xs date"
extension-element-prefixes="date"
version="1.0">
<xsl:import href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl-ns/current/fo/docbook.xsl"/>

Answer 1

I would stick with your original approach of using a processing instruction. You just need to use xsl:apply-templates to build up the fo:table-cell.

Example:

XML Input

<doc>
    <row>
        <entry>LEFT TEXT <?leftrighttext?> RIGHT TEXT</entry>
    </row>
    <row>
        <entry>NEXT TEXT WITHIN TABLE <?leftrighttext?> OTHER TEXT</entry>
    </row>    
</doc>

XSLT 1.0

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
    <xsl:output indent="yes"/>
    <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

    <xsl:template match="/*">
        <fo:root>
            <fo:layout-master-set>
                <fo:simple-page-master master-name="my-page" page-width="8.5in" page-height="11in">
                    <fo:region-body margin="1in" margin-top="1.5in" margin-bottom="1.5in"/>
                </fo:simple-page-master>
            </fo:layout-master-set>
            <fo:page-sequence master-reference="my-page">
                <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">
                    <fo:table>
                        <fo:table-body>
                            <xsl:apply-templates select="row"/>                            
                        </fo:table-body>
                    </fo:table>
                </fo:flow>
            </fo:page-sequence>
        </fo:root>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="row">
        <fo:table-row>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="entry"/>
        </fo:table-row>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="entry">
        <fo:table-cell>
            <fo:block text-align-last="justify">
                <xsl:apply-templates/>
            </fo:block>
        </fo:table-cell>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="entry/text()">
        <xsl:value-of select="normalize-space()"/>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="processing-instruction('leftrighttext')">
        <fo:leader leader-pattern="dots"/>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

XSL-FO Output

<fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
   <fo:layout-master-set>
      <fo:simple-page-master master-name="my-page" page-width="8.5in" page-height="11in">
         <fo:region-body margin="1in" margin-top="1.5in" margin-bottom="1.5in"/>
      </fo:simple-page-master>
   </fo:layout-master-set>
   <fo:page-sequence master-reference="my-page">
      <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">
         <fo:table>
            <fo:table-body>
               <fo:table-row>
                  <fo:table-cell>
                     <fo:block text-align-last="justify">LEFT TEXT<fo:leader leader-pattern="dots"/>RIGHT TEXT</fo:block>
                  </fo:table-cell>
               </fo:table-row>
               <fo:table-row>
                  <fo:table-cell>
                     <fo:block text-align-last="justify">NEXT TEXT WITHIN TABLE<fo:leader leader-pattern="dots"/>OTHER TEXT</fo:block>
                  </fo:table-cell>
               </fo:table-row>
            </fo:table-body>
         </fo:table>
      </fo:flow>
   </fo:page-sequence>
</fo:root>

Rendered PDF

---

UPDATED EXAMPLE

Looking at your update XML example I see that you have a default namespace (xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"). What you should do is declare that namespace with a prefix in your XSLT and then use that prefix in your XPaths.

If you're using XSLT 2.0, you could instead add xpath-default-namespace="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" to your xsl:stylesheet and not change any of your XPaths.

It's hard to recommend something specific because you haven't shown a complete XSLT (or even a template that shows us the context of where the tbody is being created), so this is a complete guess.

Here's an example using your updated XML and declaring the http://docbook.org/ns/docbook namespace with the prefix doc.

(I didn't try to handle the table headers or anything like that just to keep it simple.)

XML Input

<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
    version="5.0">    
    <table>
        <tgroup cols="2">
            <colspec colnum="1" colname="col1" colwidth="235"/>
            <colspec colnum="2" colname="col2" colwidth="235"/>
            <thead>
                <row>
                    <entry align="center">LSP</entry>
                    <entry align="center">RSP</entry>
                </row>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
                <row>
                    <entry align="center" namest="col1" nameend="col2">(PF) Takeoff Briefing<?leftrighttext?>PERFORM</entry>
                </row>
            </tbody>
        </tgroup>
    </table>
</section>

XSLT 1.0

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:doc="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
    <xsl:output indent="yes"/>
    <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

    <xsl:template match="/*">
        <fo:root>
            <fo:layout-master-set>
                <fo:simple-page-master master-name="my-page" page-width="8.5in" page-height="11in">
                    <fo:region-body margin="1in" margin-top="1.5in" margin-bottom="1.5in"/>
                </fo:simple-page-master>
            </fo:layout-master-set>
            <fo:page-sequence master-reference="my-page">
                <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">
                    <xsl:apply-templates/>
                </fo:flow>
            </fo:page-sequence>
        </fo:root>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="doc:table">
        <fo:table>
            <fo:table-body>
                <xsl:apply-templates select="doc:tgroup/doc:tbody/doc:row"/>                            
            </fo:table-body>
        </fo:table>        
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="doc:row">
        <fo:table-row>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="doc:entry"/>
        </fo:table-row>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="doc:entry">
        <fo:table-cell>
            <fo:block text-align-last="justify">
                <xsl:apply-templates/>
            </fo:block>
        </fo:table-cell>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="doc:entry/text()">
        <xsl:value-of select="normalize-space()"/>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="processing-instruction('leftrighttext')">
        <fo:leader leader-pattern="dots"/>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

XSL-FO Output

<fo:root xmlns:doc="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
         xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
   <fo:layout-master-set>
      <fo:simple-page-master master-name="my-page" page-width="8.5in" page-height="11in">
         <fo:region-body margin="1in" margin-top="1.5in" margin-bottom="1.5in"/>
      </fo:simple-page-master>
   </fo:layout-master-set>
   <fo:page-sequence master-reference="my-page">
      <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">
         <fo:table>
            <fo:table-body>
               <fo:table-row>
                  <fo:table-cell>
                     <fo:block text-align-last="justify">(PF) Takeoff Briefing<fo:leader leader-pattern="dots"/>PERFORM</fo:block>
                  </fo:table-cell>
               </fo:table-row>
            </fo:table-body>
         </fo:table>
      </fo:flow>
   </fo:page-sequence>
</fo:root>

Rendered PDF