Escape CSV string in XSLT

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>&#10;</xsl:text>
 61:        </xsl:variable>
 62:
 63:        <xsl:choose>
 64:
 65:            <xsl:when test="contains( $field, '&quot;' )">
 66:        <!-- Field contains a quote. We must enclose this field in quotes,
 67:           and we must escape each of the quotes in the field value.
 68:      -->
 69:                <xsl:text>"</xsl:text>
 70:
 71:                <xsl:call-template name="escape_quotes">
 72:                    <xsl:with-param name="string" select="$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, '&quot;' )" />
101:        <xsl:text>""</xsl:text>
102:
103:        <xsl:variable name="substring_after_first_quote"
104:                select="substring-after( $string, '&quot;' )" />
105:
106:        <xsl:choose>
107:
108:            <xsl:when test="not( contains( $substring_after_first_quote, '&quot;' ) )">
109:                <xsl:value-of select="$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