XPath Functions Reference

XTS extends XPath with functions in the urn:speedata.de/2021/xtsfunctions/en namespace, typically bound to the sd: prefix. All functions are called as sd:functionname(...).

In addition to the sd: functions listed below, all standard XPath functions (such as string(), number(), concat(), contains(), count(), etc.) are available. XTS uses the goxml XPath package — see its documentation for the full list of supported standard XPath functions and operators.

Page and position

sd:current-page()

Returns the current page number.

sd:current-row(areaname?)

Returns the current cursor row. Optional area name.

sd:page-number(markname)

Returns the page number where the given mark was placed.

sd:last-page-number()

Returns the last page number of the document.

sd:total-pages(filename)

Returns the number of pages of the referenced PDF (or image) file. For the page count of the document being created, use sd:last-page-number().

Grid dimensions

sd:number-of-columns(areaname?)

Returns the number of grid columns. Optional area name.

sd:number-of-rows(areaname?)

Returns the number of grid rows. Optional area name.

sd:grid-width(columns, unit?)

Returns the width of the given number of columns. Optional unit (e.g. 'cm', 'mm').

sd:grid-height(rows, unit?)

Returns the height of the given number of rows. Optional unit.

Slates

sd:slate-width(slatename, unit?)

Returns the width of a named slate: without unit as the number of grid columns, with unit (e.g. 'cm') as a number in that unit.

sd:slate-height(slatename, unit?)

Returns the height of a named slate: without unit as the number of grid rows, with unit as a number in that unit.

Images

sd:image-width(filename, page?, box?, unit?)

Returns the width of an image: without unit as the number of grid columns, with unit (one of 'sp', 'mm', 'cm', 'in', 'pt', 'px', 'pc', 'm') as a number in that unit. Optional page number (for PDF) and box type ('cropbox', 'mediabox', 'bleedbox', 'trimbox', 'artbox').

sd:image-height(filename, page?, box?, unit?)

Returns the height of an image (grid rows without unit). Same optional parameters as image-width.

sd:aspect-ratio(filename, page?, box?)

Returns the aspect ratio (width / height) of an image.

Variables and attributes

sd:variable(name)

Returns the value of the variable with the given name. Useful for dynamic variable names: sd:variable(('prefix', $i)) concatenates the arguments into a variable name.

sd:attribute(name)

Returns the value of the named attribute.

Text and formatting

sd:dummy-text()

Returns one paragraph of Lorem Ipsum text.

sd:markdown(text)

Converts Markdown text to HTML.

sd:roman-numeral(number)

Converts a number to a Roman numeral string (e.g. 4 → "IV").

sd:format-number(number, thousands-separator, decimal-separator)

Formats a number with the given thousands separator and decimal separator. Example: sd:format-number(12345.6, '.', ',') returns 12.345,6.

Math and logic

sd:even(number)

Returns true() if the number is even.

sd:odd(number)

Returns true() if the number is odd.

sd:mode(name)

Returns true() if the given mode is set (via --mode on the command line or mode in the configuration file).

Unit conversion

sd:to-unit(value, unit, precision?)

Converts a value to the given unit, optionally rounded to precision decimal places. Example: sd:to-unit('12pt', 'mm', 2) returns 4.23.

File operations

sd:file-exists(filename)

Returns true() if the file exists.

sd:file-contents(bytes)

Writes the given byte sequence (for example the result of sd:decode-base64()) to a temporary file and returns its file name, so the data can be used where a file name is expected (such as <Image href>).

String processing

sd:decode-html(string)

Decodes HTML entities in a string.

sd:decode-base64(string)

Decodes a Base64-encoded string.

Cryptographic

sd:md5(string)

Returns the MD5 hash of the string.

sd:sha1(string)

Returns the SHA-1 hash.

sd:sha256(string)

Returns the SHA-256 hash.

sd:sha512(string)

Returns the SHA-512 hash.