Thanks George for your solution. This isn't exactly what I was looking for but
that is my fault.

Should have mentioned that I would like to test for the existence of @xmlns and
output the namespace only then. So I can get output like the following

<anElem:para xmlns:anElem="http://www.namespace.com/namespaces/anElem">this is a
test to retrieve the namespace uri and name.</anElem:para>

or if ther is no @xmlns

<para>this is a test to retrieve the namespace uri and name.</para>

from

<root>
 ...
 <p xmlns:anElem="http://www.namespace.com/namespaces/anElem">this is a test to
retrieve the namespace uri and name.</p>

 <p>this is a test to retrieve the namespace uri and name.</p>
...
</root>

Sorry about that.

Mario


Quoting George Cristian Bina <george@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> Hi Mario,
> 
> The document you want as output has the para element with an undeclared 
> namespace as the anElem prefix is not bound. Probably what you want is
> 
> <anElem:para 
> xmlns:anElem="http://www.namespace.com/namespaces/anElem">this is a test
>          to retrieve the namespace uri and name.</anElem:para>
> ?
> 
> In that case you can use something like:
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
> <x:stylesheet xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
>    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="2.0">
>    <x:template match="root">
>      <newDoc>
>        <xsl:apply-templates/>
>      </newDoc>
>    </x:template>
>    <xsl:template match="p">
>      <xsl:variable name="pns" select="namespace-uri()"/>
>      <xsl:for-each select="namespace::*[name()!=$pns and name()!='xml'][1]">
>        <xsl:element name="{name()}:para" namespace="{.}">this is a test 
> to retrieve the namespace uris
>          and name.</xsl:element>
>      </xsl:for-each>
>    </xsl:template>
> </x:stylesheet>
> 
> to get
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><newDoc>
>      ...
>      <anElem:para 
> xmlns:anElem="http://www.namespace.com/namespaces/anElem">this is a test 
> to retrieve the namespace uris
>          and name.</anElem:para>
>      ...
> </newDoc>
> 
> Best Regards,
> George
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> George Cristian Bina
> <oXygen/> XML Editor, Schema Editor and XSLT Editor/Debugger
> http://www.oxygenxml.com
> 
> 
> Mario Madunic wrote:
> > Hi I'm hoping somebody might have some insight.
> > 
> > Saxon 8
> > XSLT 2
> > 
> > Here is a sample piece of xml to help get the idea of what I'm trying to
> achieve.
> > 
> > <root>
> > ...
> >      <p xmlns:anElem="http://www.namespace.com/namespaces/anElem">this is a
> test
> > to retrieve the namespace uri and name.</p>
> > ...
> > </root>
> > 
> > I've been trying to get the namespace and uri from the @xmlns with no
> success. I
> > would like to reuse both the ns and uri when I transform the p into
> something like
> > <newDoc>
> > ...
> > <anElem:para xmlns="http://www.namespace.com/namespaces/anElem">this is a
> test
> > to retrieve the namespace uri and name.</anElem:para>
> > ...
> > </newDoc>
> > 
> > I've used
> > 
> > namespace-uri()
> > name()
> > namespace-uri-for-prefix()
> > namespace-uri-from-QName()
> > 
> > I'm pretty sure the last 2 were being used inappropriately
> > 
> > Any ideas or solution would be appreciated.
> > 
> > Thanks
> > 
> > Marijan Madunic