Re: Making XPath expressions out of variables

> Is there a way of selecting nodes which have the name $some-variable using an 
> XPath expression?


<xsl:for-each select="//$some-variable">


doesn't work as you can't have a string following //, if some-variable
contains the string 'foo' you can use $some-variable in exactly the
places that you can use 'foo'.

It's strange why this comes up so often, it must be something to do with
the $ syntax, i'm sure that in other programming lists people don't
expect to be able to go

op = "+";
3 op 5;

and get 8.


What you want is

<xsl:for-each select="//*[name()=$some-variable"]>


What you want here
<xsl:if test="$lh-operator $operand $rh-operator">
may be as you suggestan xsl:choose on the possible operators.
Although it depends what you actually want. Actually I can'tt hink of any
postfix operators in XPath so what do you have in mind for $rh-operator
?


Some XSLT engines (eg saxon) have an evaluate extension function that
will evaluate a string as an Xpath expression, which you could also use.


David


-- 
http://www.dcarlisle.demon.co.uk/matthew

________________________________________________________________________
This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star Internet. The
service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive
anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
http://www.star.net.uk
________________________________________________________________________

 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list