RE: Getting the root namespace from the input document

> You want to be able to guarantee the 
> string value you construct will be coherent with the 
> namespaces in scope (bound to a well-known set of prefixes).  
> That is not possible in XSLT 1.0.

I don't think that's strictly true. It's certainly possible with XSLT 1.0 to
copy namespace nodes from a source document to a result document, and that
gives you most of the capability needed; though in the absence of the
xsl:namespace instruction it can involve some clumsy work-arounds. There's
also sometimes a theoretical risk that prefixes will be changed because XSLT
1.0 permits it - but mainstream processors all do the decent thing in
straightforward cases.

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