Re: problem with xsl:copy-of and counting lines

<xsl:template match="block" mode="variable">
<xsl:copy-of select="."/>
<xsl:variable name="countlines" select="string-length(/) -
string-length(translate(/,'&#xA;',''))" />
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</xsl:template>

is the same code you used to count the whole document, just replace /
(twice) by .  if you want to just use the string value of the current
element rather than the whole document. If you want to return a result
tree fragment with that number as the string value of that number you
then want to use $countlines not . in teh final value of, although of
course as the variable is only used once you don't really need it.
The first copy-of will copy the input into this result tree fragmnent
which I assume you don't want, so

<xsl:template match="block" mode="variable">
<xsl:value-of elect="string-length(.) -
string-length(translate(.,'&#xA;',''))" />"/>
</xsl:template>

David

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But if I want to use the value of the string for other operations I
have to declare a global variable, right? I want to declare the
variable in an external variables.xsl file. My idea was to create the
variables.xsl => xsl:apply-templates which points to the source
document => count the lines => use the resulting variable in my
stylesheet document. So far my idea :-)

Is it possible to match the node of an external document like
<xsl:template match="document('variables.xsl')/block"> or something like
this?

<xsl:template match="block">
<xsl:variable name="countlines">
<xsl:apply-templates/>
<xsl:value-of select="string-length(.) -
string-length(translate(.,'&#xA;', ''))"/>
</xsl:variable>
</xsl:template>

Thanks so much for your patience :-) I am just waiting for Michael
Kays two books about XPath 2.0 and XSLT 2.0 for helping me with the
theme.