sort/group/count problem

Hi,

  I currently have a XML document with the attached structure, my goal is to
sort/group/count based on the information in the elements.  My questions
are:
1. Is the XML structure attached efficient?  Should I put most of the
elements, such as all children of <item>, to be attributes instead?
2. How should I sort all items within each batch based on itemid, and
display each of the group separately?
3. How should I count all distinctive itemid within each batch?
I was able to figure out "count(//itemid[not(.=preceding::itemid)])" count
all disctinctive itemid, but it was for all items in the XML document, not
within the scope of each batch.

Any suggestions much appreciated,

Xiaocun Xu
xxu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


original XML document:
	<batchlist>
             <batch>
		<batchid>102</batchid>
		<date>09/29/2000</date>
		<itemlist>
		    <item>
			<itemid>Z1000</itemid>
			<description>PILLOW</description>
			<duedate>09/29/2000</duedate>
			<division>RETAIL BRAND 001</division>
			<orderid>00001113-001</orderid>
			<poid>0000881</poid>
			<units>1</units>
			<cmz>N</cmz>
		    </item>
                    <item>...</item>
		</itemlist>
              </batch>
              <batch>...</batch>
	</batchlist>


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