Unfortunately XSLT 1.0 doesn't allow you to do a two-phase transformation in
this way. This would work on XSLT 2.0, or it would work on XSLT 1.0 if your
processor supports an xx:node-set() extension function (which most do, a
notable exception being the Transformiix processor used in Mozilla/Firefox).
Use it like this:

> <xsl:template name="positionfilter">
> <xsl:param name="sortedlist"/>
> <xsl:for-each select="xx:node-set($sortedlist)/*[(position() &gt;= $start)
and
...

after binding the namespace prefix xx (or you own choice of prefix) to the
appropriate namespace URI for the XSLT processor you are using.

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