Re: sorting by attribute + element vs attribute

> Am I right in thinking this is one of XSLT's more 
> subtle aspects, left to the user to work out?

Not really:-)

> I knew the current context changed within for-each,
> I made the wrong assumption that is also changed
> (to the attribute) within the sort, which I had not
> written as an empty element.

sort is _always_ empty, the expression in its select attribute is
evaluated as a string, like xsl:value-of so as it isn't selecting a node
list there is no way it could change the context.

> hence my amazement
> at Davids use of variable last week.

xsl:variable and xsl:param take the same content as xsl:template, so you
can use xsl:for-each (the one you were surprised about)
xsl:apply-templates, xsl:variable (again) etc. By putting a
xsl:apply-templates select="/" into an xsl:variable you can grab the
entire output tree into a variable and then use that (and the node-set
extension) to chain stylesheets together.


David


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