Sorry, that was garbled, even by my standards.
try again:




If you have access to x:node-set (most xslt 1 systems other than
mozilla have it) then it's easy. just

<xsl:variable name="filter">
 <xsl:for-each....

</xsl;for-each>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:variable name="total" select="count(x:node-set($filter)/*)"/>


If you haven't got node-set then it's a bit less convenient.

David