Your problem seems to be very simple:

<xsl:value-of select="document($input-file)" />

The xsl:value-of instruction writes a text node whose value is the
string-value of the input. The string value of a document node is the
concatenation of all its text, with no hierarchic structure. You probably
want xsl:copy-of or xsl:sequence.

Note also: XSLT 2.0 does allow you to run a stylesheet with no principal
input document. Just specify a named template as the entry point. If using
the Saxon command line you do this with the "it" option, e.g. "-it main".

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/ 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Abel Braaksma Online [mailto:abel.online@xxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 25 July 2006 15:03
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  How to use document() of doc() function with 
> copy idiom, or how to access nodes of doc() tree
> 
> Dear list,
> 
> I have been trying some variants, but I think I've been stuck 
> in the namespaces and context location labyrinth. What I want 
> seems easy: I have a set of documents, all valid XML and want 
> to output the contents of these documents, either as one big 
> XML document, or as a set of documents.
> 
> In essence: using the copy idiom on each document and, 
> optionally, doing something with the tree that is input from 
> the document() function.
> 
> Problem: all my nodes are gone and the external documents are 
> output as one big piece of text (except for the tags "doc" 
> and "input-file") and I don't seem to be able to find 
> specific values, like the "tableData" tag below. I know this 
> is usually a namespace problem, but I don't know how to solve 
> it. Because it does not even work for one input file, I 
> provide a stripped down version of my XSLT below, that parses 
> one external xml document.
> 
> Namespace of input xml document: this is equal to the current 
> xslt document (just because saxon needs an input document. I 
> don't actually use it) Namespace of document() xml doc: 
> "http://www.nuntia.com/tablewiz1.0"
> Namespace of output document: "http://www.nuntia.com/tablewiz1.0"
> 
> XSLT file:
> <xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" 
>     xmlns = "http://www.nuntia.com/tablewiz1.0"
>     exclude-result-prefixes = "nuntia xsl xs fn xdt"
>     xpath-default-namespace = "http://www.nuntia.com/tablewiz1.0">
>    
>     <xsl:output indent="yes" />
>    
>     <!-- name of the input file or files -->
>     <xsl:param name="input-file" select="'test.xml'" />
> 
>     <!-- load the documents -->
>     <xsl:variable name="documents">
>             <doc>
>                 <input-filename><xsl:value-of select="." 
> /></input-filename>
>                 <xsl:value-of select="document($input-file)" />
>             </doc>
>     </xsl:variable>
>    
>     <xsl:template match="/">
>         <output>
>             <xsl:for-each select="$documents/doc">
>                 <xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="copy" />
>             </xsl:for-each>
>         </output>
>     </xsl:template>
>    
>     <xsl:template match="node() | @*" mode="copy">
>         <xsl:copy>
>             <xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()" mode="copy"/>
>         </xsl:copy>
>     </xsl:template>
>    
> </xsl:stylesheet>
> 
> XML file that is input using document() function, namely test.xml:
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <tableData name="bla">
>    <description>Table description</description>
>    <rows total="3">
>        <row id="35" row-index="not-applicable">
>            <cell>Row1Cell1</cell>
>            <cell>Row1Cell2</cell>
>        </row>
>    </rows>
> </tableData>