Re: [xsl] Are variables allowed in XPATHs?

[Harry Ohlsen <harryo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ivan Pedruzzi wrote:
> http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#section-Defining-Template-Rules
> It is an error for the value of the match attribute to contain a
> VariableReference.

Thanks.  So, XMLSpy is telling me the true story 
and Xalan is kindly accepting my naive XSL!

I must say, I find this restriction somewhat 
amazing.  I assume it's intended to reduce the 
complexity of writing XSL processors?

How do people normally write generic XSLT without 
using variables?

The only way I can see is to generate the XSLT on 
the fly, via an intermediate template, or code in 
another language, like Java.

Any suggestions as to the "right way" to do this 
sort of thing would be gratefully received.  Feel 
free to point me to a book or website that 
discusses such things.

I'm loathe to use a non-standard feature, but 
since Xalan seems to be a very well-supported 
processor, I may just live with it, unless there's 
a standard approach that's vaguely clean to code.



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