Re: Using variables in xpath attribute matches

> Am I trying to do something really stupid?

Apparently not, as it is one of the more frequently asked questions.

What isn't so clear is why people expect this to work this way.
I don't get the impression that on lists for C or Java or Fortran that
people expect that they can have expression fragments in strings and
then just use them inline.
in C you can't go
x=1;
var="x +";
y= var 1;

and expect that y evaluates to 2. ie x + 1 rather than be like "x+"1 (a
syntax error).

If you have a string containing C syntax you need runtime access to a C
Parser to do anything with it.

It's the same in XSLT, but for some reason people expect

$var="x"
@$var

to act like

$x rather than $"x"

@*[local-name()=$x] is your friend.

David



________________________________________________________________________
The Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd is a company registered in England
and Wales with company number 1249803. The registered office is:
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, United Kingdom.

This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service is
powered by MessageLabs. 
________________________________________________________________________