Counting siblings...

Hi,

I have an interesting problem, and wondered if your clever people might be
able to offer some possible solutions:

I have an XML file structure like this:

<root>
<item level=0>
</item>
<item level=1>
</item>
<item level=2>
</item>
<item level=1>
</item>
<item level=2>
</item>
<item level=0>
</item>
<item level=1>
</item>
</root>

Considering the first 5 item elements, both items with a level=1 are direct
replies to the first item with a level=0.  The first item with a level=2 is
a direct reply to the first item with a level=1, and so on.  The second four
items are all classed as replies to the first item with a level=0.  Had the
XML been nested, the 1st 5 would have looked like this;


<item level=0>
	<item level=1>
		<item level=2>
		</item>
	</item>
	<item level=1>
		<item level=2>
		</item>
	</item>
</item>


Now, the problem comes as a result of the flat-file structure.  I need to
count the number of replies to each item element.  Had it been nested, I
could have counted the descendants.  
Now, I need to count the following-siblings, who's level is higher than that
of the context element, but only where the following-siblings continue to
have a higher level (i.e., stop the count when the level decreases again).
As you can probably gauge from my poor phraseology, I'm a bit confused!  Any
help would be gratefully accepted!


Thanks,

Giles Smith


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list