Dynamic sorting is a FAQ, though your example is unusual since you seem
to be selecting the node-set to be sorted dynamically, rather than the
sort key.

If your parameter is always an element name, you can use
*[name()=$param]. If it's a more general XPath expression, you need the
xx:evaluate() extension function offered by some products, which allows
you to treat a string as an XPath expression.

In your example $sort is the string "person", not the XPath expression
"person".

Michael Kay

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
> Peter Billen
> Sent: 05 February 2004 15:02
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  dynamic sorting
> 
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> I'm breaking my head on some problem, and I hope you can help 
> me with it.
> 
> Imagine the following part of an xml file:
> 
> <person>
> 	<fname>Jup</fname>
> 	<lname>Nope</lname>
> 	<bday>Also</bday>
> 	...
> </person
> 
> The following works perfect:
> 
> <xsl:template match="/">
> 	<xsl:apply-templates select="person">
> 		<xsl:sort select="person/fname"/
> 	</xsl:apply-templates>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> But when I put the string "person" into a parameter named 
> "sort", it doesn't work anymore:
> 
> <xsl:template match="/">
> 	<xsl:param name="sort">person</xsl:param>
> 	<xsl:apply-templates select="$sort">
> 		<xsl:sort select="person/fname"/
> 	</xsl:apply-templates>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> My goal is that the user of my xsl file can give a parameter 
> "sort" (to his xslt parser) which defines his preferred way 
> of sorting.
> 
> Any ideas what is wrong?
> 
> Thanks a lot,
> 
> --
> Peter
> 
> 
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> 


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