error in variable statement

I just switched to saxon 8.9 from 8.6(?)sorry deleted it before i checked

my variable statement used to read

<xsl:variable name="g_PubDate" select="if (string-length(//pubdate) &gt; 0) then
//pubdate else $g_Unknown" />

This now throws an error. So some quick reading and I changed the statement to 

<xsl:variable name="g_PubDate" select="if (string-length(//pubdate) gt 0) then
//pubdate else $g_Unknown" /> 

basically removing the ampersand and semi-colon but I still receive the same
error msg

here is a copy of the error msg

     [xslt] : Error! Syntax error in 'if (string-length(//pubdate) gt 0) then
//pubdate else $g_Unknown'.
     [xslt] : Error! file:/C:/RBI/isoTest/templates/globals/g_Globals.xsl: line
43: Error parsing XPath expression 'if (string-length(//pubdate) gt 0) then
//pubdate else $g_Unknown'.
     [xslt] : Error! file:/C:/RBI/isoTest/templates/globals/g_Globals.xsl: line
43: Required attribute 'select' is missing.

stumped and don't quite know what is wrong. working before i switched to 8.9.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Mario