Thomas,

> i have xml - documents containing footnotes, e.g.
>
> <footnote nr=b1b> b&. Text </footnote>
> b&
> <footnote nr=bxyb>b& Text </footnote>
>
> The documents are processed by XSLT (Saxon).
>
> Within this I have to process and sort these footnotes in a very special
manner. So i want to use java to do this.

with the exception of the last sentence your question would qualify for this
list easily. As we like to think XSLT is a complete language, why would you
want to use Java, if there is a challenge in sight. So, what is the "special
manner" which, you think, can not be sorted using XSLT?

- Michael