You're not explaining yourself well. You've shown some source XML (good) and
have then said that the actual XML might be completely different (so why
show it?).  Then you say:

>I need to be able to pull the parent node tree into a variable so I can
then loop over them. 

Parent of what? What is a "parent node tree"? What does "them" refer to (I
can't find a plural noun)? Why do you want to loop over "them"? Why do you
imagine that pulling it/them into a variable will help? And last but not
least, what output are you trying to produce?

Perhaps (guessing wildly) you just want

<xsl:for-each select="ancestor::*">

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



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim Dexter [mailto:timothy.dexter@xxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 05 May 2008 21:25
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  Generically Finding Parent Elements
> 
> Hi All
> 
> Im struggling with a problem. Assume I have the following XML
> 
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <ROOT>
>  <DEPTS>
>   <DEPT>
>    <DEPTNO>10</DEPTNO>
>    <DEPTNAME>Accounting</DEPTNAME>
>    <EMPLOYEES>
>     <EMPLOYEE>
>      <EMPNUM>10001</EMPNUM>
>      <EMPNAME>Jo Bloggs</EMPNAME>
>      <SALARY>100000</SALARY>
>     </EMPLOYEE>
>     <EMPLOYEE>
>      <EMPNUM>10002</EMPNUM>
>      <EMPNAME>Jo Smother</EMPNAME>
>      <SALARY>220000</SALARY>
>     </EMPLOYEE>
>     <EMPLOYEE>
>      <EMPNUM>10003</EMPNUM>
>      <EMPNAME>James Dean</EMPNAME>
>      <SALARY>1000</SALARY>
>     </EMPLOYEE>
>    </EMPLOYEES>
>   </DEPT>
>   <DEPT>
>    <DEPTNO>20</DEPTNO>
>    <DEPTNAME>Shipping</DEPTNAME>
>    <EMPLOYEES>
>     <EMPLOYEE>
>      <EMPNUM>20001</EMPNUM>
>      <EMPNAME>Dave Gibbons</EMPNAME>
>      <SALARY>100000</SALARY>
>     </EMPLOYEE>
>     <EMPLOYEE>
>      <EMPNUM>20002</EMPNUM>
>      <EMPNAME>John Fisher</EMPNAME>
>      <SALARY>220000</SALARY>
>     </EMPLOYEE>
>     <EMPLOYEE>
>      <EMPNUM>20003</EMPNUM>
>      <EMPNAME>Marti Johnson</EMPNAME>
>      <SALARY>1000</SALARY>
>     </EMPLOYEE>
>    </EMPLOYEES>
>   </DEPT>
>  </DEPTS>
> </ROOT>
> 
> This is just a sample XML the XSL template needs to handle 
> any number of levels in the XML - the only known element is 
> the ROOT name. I need to be able to pull the parent node tree 
> into a variable so I can then loop over them. The looping I 
> can handle, any help on grabbing the parent element names in 
> a tree gratefully received.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Tim