The XPath parser has seen an expression beginning with "<". There are no
expressions beginning with this character in XPath, only in XQuery, hence
the error message.

Your regular expression needs to be in quotes, for example <xsl:if
test="matches($x, '&lt;\[')">

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



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Manuel Souto Pico [mailto:manuel.souto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: 13 February 2009 16:23
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  regex in XSLT 2.0: problems with XPath
>
> Hi again,
>
> I was glad to find out that XSLT 2.0 supports regular
> expressions (although I was surprised they weren't supported
> already in 1.0). I'm trying to use them to capture some
> element if its contents match some expression.
>
> It seems that I need to use XSLT 2.0, so I believe I must
> change the definition in the XSLT document (see 2nd line in
> the preamble of my doc just below) as well as the processor
> version (I used Saxon 6.5.5. with XSLT 1.0, now I've chosen
> Saxon-SA 9.1.0.3). I do all of this in oXygen 10 and I
> haven't done anything else to use XSLT 2.0.
>
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <xsl:stylesheet
> version="2.0"
> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
>     <xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"
> indent="yes" />
> (...)
>
> The area of code where I want to use regular expressions look
> like (using the syntax matches(elem, expr):
>
>                                 <xsl:for-each
> select="../category[@domain='tag'][@nicename]">
>                                     <xsl:if
> test="matches(../category[@domain='tag'][@nicename],
> &lt;!\[CDATA\[economia\]\]&gt;)">
>                                         <descrip type='subjectfield'>
>                                             <xsl:value-of
> select="../category[@domain='tag'][@nicename]"/>
>                                         </descrip>
>                                     </xsl:if>
>                                 </xsl:for-each>
>
> However, when I run the debugger, I get this error message:
>
>     SystemID: vds2tbx.xsl
>     Description: Failed to compile stylesheet. 1 error detected.
>
>     SystemID: vds2tbx.xsl
>     Location: 37:0
>     Description: XPath syntax error at char 47 on line 37 in
>     {...y[@domain='tag'][@nicename]...}:
>         Node constructor expressions are allowed only in
> XQuery, not in
>     XPath
>     URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath20/#ERRXPST0003
>
> Googling that error I couldn't find any useful pages, so I am
> quite stuck. What am I doing wrong? Am I using the old
> version of XPath?
>
> I hope my questions are interesting for the list!
> Regards, Manuel
>
> --
> Manuel Souto Pico
> Terminslogo / Responsable de servicio ticnico
>
> *STAR Servicios Ling|msticos, SL*
> C. Sardenya, 195-197 (baixos)
> E-08013 Barcelona
> Tel. +34 932 440 881
> Fax: +34 932 471 273
>
> manuel.souto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:manuel.souto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> http://www.star-spain.com