To output CSV format, we will need to escape a field if it has quote, or comma or line feed. To escape a CSV string in XSLT is not a straight forward task. After a little search I found the following solution which passed my test. The code is from a thread I found here: http://www.cygwin.com/ml/xsl-list/2001-03/msg00794.html
48: <!-- Sample of calling the escape template -->
49: <xsl:template match="*">
50: <xsl:call-template name="display_csv_field">
51: <xsl:with-param name="field" select="myFieldToEscape"/>
52: </xsl:call-template>
53: </xsl:template>
54:
55: <!-- Template to escape csv field -->
56: <xsl:template name="display_csv_field">
57: <xsl:param name="field"/>
58:
59: <xsl:variable name="linefeed">
60: <xsl:text> </xsl:text>
61: </xsl:variable>
62:
63: <xsl:choose>
64:
65: <xsl:when test="contains( $field, '"' )">
66: <!-- Field contains a quote. We must enclose this field in quotes,
67: and we must escape each of the quotes in the field value.
68: -->
69: <xsl:text>"</xsl:text>
70:
71: <xsl:call-template name="escape_quotes">
72: <xsl:with-param name="string" select="$field" />
73: </xsl:call-template>
74:
75: <xsl:text>"</xsl:text>
76: </xsl:when>
77:
78: <xsl:when test="contains( $field, ',' ) or contains( $field, $linefeed )">
79: <!-- Field contains a comma and/or a linefeed.
80: We must enclose this field in quotes.
81: -->
82: <xsl:text>"</xsl:text>
83: <xsl:value-of select="$field" />
84: <xsl:text>"</xsl:text>
85: </xsl:when>
86:
87: <xsl:otherwise>
88: <!-- No need to enclose this field in quotes.
89: -->
90: <xsl:value-of select="$field" />
91: </xsl:otherwise>
92:
93: </xsl:choose>
94: </xsl:template>
95:
96: <!-- Helper for escaping CSV field -->
97: <xsl:template name="escape_quotes">
98: <xsl:param name="string" />
99:
100: <xsl:value-of select="substring-before( $string, '"' )" />
101: <xsl:text>""</xsl:text>
102:
103: <xsl:variable name="substring_after_first_quote"
104: select="substring-after( $string, '"' )" />
105:
106: <xsl:choose>
107:
108: <xsl:when test="not( contains( $substring_after_first_quote, '"' ) )">
109: <xsl:value-of select="$substring_after_first_quote" />
110: </xsl:when>
111:
112: <xsl:otherwise>
113: <!-- The substring after the first quote contains a quote.
114: So, we call ourself recursively to escape the quotes
115: in the substring after the first quote.
116: -->
117:
118: <xsl:call-template name="escape_quotes">
119: <xsl:with-param name="string" select="$substring_after_first_quote"/>
120: </xsl:call-template>
121: </xsl:otherwise>
122:
123: </xsl:choose>
124:
125: </xsl:template>
By the way, remember to set the XSLT's output like this:
<xsl:output method="text" encoding="iso-8859-1">
</xsl:output>
Reference: http://www.cygwin.com/ml/xsl-list/2001-03/msg00794.html
