Here is some code I use in one of my XSLT files to rotate random testimonials for a client using a Javascript function. Maybe this will help.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [ <!ENTITY nbsp "&#x00A0;"> ]>
<xsl:stylesheet
    version="1.0"
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    xmlns:msxml="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
    xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
    xmlns:umbraco.library="urn:umbraco.library"
    exclude-result-prefixes="msxml msxsl umbraco.library rdm">
    <xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />




<xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>
<xsl:param name="currentPage" />
<xsl:variable name="maxItems" select="number(2)" />
<msxsl:script language="JavaScript" implements-prefix="rdm">
    function Random(r) { return Math.ceil(Math.random()*r); }
</msxsl:script>
<xsl:template match="/">

<xsl:for-each select="$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::root//node [@nodeTypeAlias='Testimonial']">
    <xsl:sort select="rdm:Random($maxItems)" order="descending" />
    <xsl:if test="position() &lt;= $maxItems">





        Place your sponsor display code here...
    </xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/xslt/snippets/getting-a-series-of-unique-random-numbers

This should point you in the right direction.

Looks like the code formatter messed it up a bit, sorry.

Also, you will need to count your nodes and assign that number to the maxItems variable.  You should be able to use the count() method for this.

Thanks guys, I've tried the code but am getting  this error - should there be any other line for the rdm namespace or similar?: System.Xml.Xsl.XslLoadException: Prefix 'rdm' is not defined.

Out of interest - is the umbraco.library.getrandom() function still valid? I found one site that said it wasn't usable in xslt, but I couldn't get it to work or be recognized at all.

I can give you tomorrow a working example (I have access to it tomorrow).

Thomas

Sorry about that... please add the following at the top:

    version="1.0"
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    xmlns:msxml="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
    xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
    xmlns:rdm="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"

Thanks! That got rid of my error, but as with the first example I tried, my random numbers are all displaying as zero. Something does not seem to be working correctly when I call any kind of script from within the xslt. This should be possible, right? I'm wondering if it's a server config issue.

If I change the random number code to simply return 1, or perform the random calculation +1, it returns 1 so it seems to be getting into that function ok just not processing the javascript.

Any ideas?

I reset the permissions and that seemed to do the trick. The page loads nice and fast and hasn't crashed the worker process. Thanks a ton for that code snippet, I've got my count() stuff in place and it seems to be working perfectly.

You bet, glad I could help!

As promised here my approach I am using to display images on a frontpage in a random order. I took the code from some posts in the old and new forum, but I don#t know the original locations anymore.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [
  <!ENTITY nbsp "&#x00A0;">
]>
<xsl:stylesheet
    version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
  xmlns:msxml="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
  xmlns:umbraco.library="urn:umbraco.library"
   xmlns:Exslt.ExsltCommon="urn:Exslt.ExsltCommon"
   xmlns:Exslt.ExsltDatesAndTimes="urn:Exslt.ExsltDatesAndTimes"
 xmlns:Exslt.ExsltMath="urn:Exslt.ExsltMath"
   xmlns:Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions="urn:Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions"
   xmlns:Exslt.ExsltStrings="urn:Exslt.ExsltStrings"
 xmlns:Exslt.ExsltSets="urn:Exslt.ExsltSets"
   xmlns:ferinet="urn:ferinet"
   xmlns:random="urn:random"
 exclude-result-prefixes="msxml umbraco.library Exslt.ExsltCommon Exslt.ExsltDatesAndTimes Exslt.ExsltMath Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions Exslt.ExsltStrings Exslt.ExsltSets ferinet">

 <xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>

 <xsl:param name="currentPage"/>

   <msxml:script implements-prefix="random" language="C#">
     <msxml:assembly name="umbraco"/>
        <msxml:using namespace="umbraco"/>
      <![CDATA[
public int GetRandom(int minValue, int maxValue)
{
return umbraco.library.GetRandom().Next(minValue, maxValue);
}
]]>
    </msxml:script>

   <xsl:template match="/">

      <xsl:variable name="mediaNode" select="umbraco.library:GetMedia('1850', 'true')"/>

        <xsl:for-each select="$mediaNode/node">
         <xsl:sort select="random:GetRandom(1, count($mediaNode/node))" order="ascending" />
         <a href="{umbraco.library:NiceUrl(data[@alias = 'Link'])}">
             <img src="{data [@alias='Crops']//crop/@url}" alt="pic" width="265" height="173"/>
          </a>
        </xsl:for-each>

   </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

This example is working with the media nodes, but can also be used on content nodes.

hth, Thomas

Thomas, you just saved me hours of work thanks!

L

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