I am writing an XSLT program that outputs an XML Schema.

The generated XML Schema is to contain a simpleType, with a pattern facet. Its regex is to express: zero or more lowercase letters of the English alphabet, the left curly brace, and the right curly brace:

<xs:simpleType name="Stuff">
    <xs:restriction base="xs:string">
        <xs:pattern value="[a-z\{\}]*" />
    </xs:restriction>
</xs:simpleType>

The curly braces are special symbols in the regex language, so I escaped them: \{ and \}

Interestingly, the curly braces are also special symbols in the XSLT language. That's causing me problems.

Below is my XSLT program. It doesn't work - an error is generated because of the curly braces.

Note that replacing the curly braces with their character references also failed:

<xs:pattern value="[a-z\&#x7B;\ &#x7D;]*" />

What's the right way to do this?

<xs:restriction base="xs:string">
    <xs:pattern value="[a-z\{{\}}]*" />
</xs:restriction>

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