Re: Applying contains() to multiple nodes problem

   <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform "

That should generate an error about missing xsl namespace (because of
the space)

$ saxon reac.xml reac.xsl
Error 
  Namespace for stylesheet element should be http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform
Transformation failed: Namespace for stylesheet element should be http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform


fixing that gives the result you posted

  "contains(//entry/@reaction, $rea)"

in xslt 2 that would be an error (multiple nodes supplied as 1st
argument.) in XSLT1 line most string functions contains will silently
dicard all but the first node, so it is the same as

  "contains((//entry/@reaction)[1], $rea)"

what you want is to check each node individually, so

  "//entry[contains(@reaction, $rea)]"

you then get the reult that you wanted 


however note that // is an expendive operation and you do it lots of
times (unless syour xslt engine optimises this away for you)
You could use a key to optimise this but that's rather easier in xslt2
than xslt1 as you want to key off the reaction element after spliiting
on white space.

David

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