Although it's clear from these responses that there are solutions to these
requirements, I have always felt the need for  higher order operators to
achieve this effect:

$seq[>>EXP]    everything in $seq after the first item that satisfies EXP
$seq[>>=EXP]   everything in $seq after and including -"-
$seq[<<EXP]    everything in $seq before the first item that satisfies EXP
$seq[<<=EXP]   everything in $seq before and including -"-

They're available in Saxon and EXSLT to some extent in the form xx:leading()
and xx:trailing().

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vladimir Nesterovsky [mailto:vladimir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 18 December 2008 16:06
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re:  selecting from sequences
> 
> > - the position of the first b?
> 
> <!-- 0 means that there is no value. --> <xsl:variable 
> name="index" as="xs:integer" select="
>   (
>     for $i in 1 to count($seq) return
>       $seq[$i][self::b],
>    0
>  )[1]"/>
> 
> > - everything before the first b
> 
> <xsl:sequence select="subsequence($seq, 1, $index)"/>
> 
> > - everything from the first b to the end
> 
> 
> <xsl:sequence select="subsequence($seq, $index)"/>
> 
> Vladimir Nesterovsky
> http://www.nesterovsky-bros.com
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ruud Grosmann" <r.grosmann@xxxxxx>
> To: <xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 17:28
> Subject:  selecting from sequences
> 
> 
> > hi group,
> > 
> > I have question which must have been on this list before, 
> but I can't 
> > find the answer.
> > 
> > In my style sheet I make a selection of the elements and 
> pass that to a 
> > template. In that template I can reference this sequence as $seq.
> > 
> > Selecting from $seq appears to be not that easy, because I 
> can't use 
> > axes. Axes have a document scope whereas I want to do 
> something within 
> > the sequence.
> > If for example $seq contains elements a, b, c, b, e:
> > 
> > how do I select
> > - everything before the first b
> > - everything from the first b to the end
> > - the position of the first b?
> > 
> > As $seq[self::b][1]/preceding-sibling::* is not good 
> because it possibly 
> > selects element outside the sequence, but are 
> preceding-siblings in the 
> > document.
> > 
> > Thanks in advance,
> > 
> > Ruud