XSL:if test not working as expected - html

Question

<xsl:for-each select="class/student">
ID: <xsl:value-of select="id"/><br/>
Name: <xsl:value-of select="lastName"/>,<xsl:value-of select="firstName"/><br/>
Date: <xsl:value-of select="date"/><br/>
Major: <xsl:if test="major[#Year > 2008]">
<xsl:value-of select="major"/> ,
declared in: <xsl:value-of select="major[#Year]"/>
</xsl:if><br/><br/>
</xsl:for-each>
XML code`:
<student>
<id>1000001</id>
<lastName>john</lastName>
<firstName>Doe</firstName>
<date format="d">08/25/2006</date>
<major Year="2006">CS:BS</major>
</student>
output:
ID: 1000001
Name: Doe,John
Date-enrolled: August 25, 2006
Major: CS:BS , declared in: CS:BS
the xml code above is just a sample of the actual xml code, there are more 'Year' values/elements.
Hi guys,
Im trying to get only majors whose Year is greater than 2008, for some reason im getting the wrong output.
thanks

Answer 1

You say "there are more 'Year' values/elements" than shown, and that may be the key to the problem. If your input contains two elements
<major Year="2006">CS:BS</major>
<major Year="2009">CS:BS</major>
then test="major/#Year > 2008" will return true, because there is one such element, and in XSLT 1.0, <xsl:value-of select="major"/> will output the first selected element (in 2.0 it will raise an error).
In future, please try to supply a complete sample stylesheet and source document that allow others to reproduce the problem. If you try to cut it down without testing that the cut-down version exhibits the problem, it's easy to eliminate the feature that is the actual source of the trouble.

Answer 2

The problem is that you are going about this backwards. You need to select the stuff that you want, and then use it. You are checking whether the stuff that you want exists, and then using something less specific.
This should fix your issue:
Major:
<xsl:for-each select="major[#Year > 2008]">
<br/>
<xsl:value-of select="."/>, declared in: <xsl:value-of select="#Year"/>
</xsl:for-each>
<br/>
Your use of
<xsl:value-of select="major[#Year]"/>
was also incorrect. The following would have actually output a year value:
<xsl:value-of select="major/#Year"/>
I strongly suggest using either <xsl:text> or <xsl:value-of> for your static text. Your current approach of sprinkling text throughout your XSLT is resulting in very messy-looking XSLT code:
<xsl:for-each select="class/student">
<xsl:value-of select="concat('ID: ', id)"/>
<br/>
<xsl:value-of select="concat('Name: ', lastName, ',', firstName)"/>
<br/>
<xsl:value-of select="concat('Date: ', date)"/>
<br/>
<xsl:text>Major:</xsl:text>
<xsl:for-each select="major[#Year > 2008]">
<br/>
<xsl:value-of select="concat(., ', declared in: ', #Year)"/>
</xsl:for-each>
<br/>
</xsl:for-each>