RE: Reusing XPath statements (defining once and only

> The stylesheet works, but the XPath expressions bother me. I 
> would like to declare this XPath once:
> @* | * | comment() | processing-instruction() | text()
> and refer to it elsewhere. I tried to make it a variable, but it 
> doesn't seem to work.

You can use XML entities for this.  They are resolved
when the stylesheet is parsed as XML.  For example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [
<!ENTITY foo "note/para[1] | important/para[1] | warning/para[1] | caution/para[ 1] |tip/para[1]">
]>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"
                version="1.0">

<xsl:template match="&foo;">
...


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