[xsl] using a fancy character for the first letter of a paragraph

["Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  almost certainly a misunderstanding on my part, but i was perusing
"XSLT (2nd ed)" by kay, and i was puzzled by his template to use a 
fancy letter graphic for the first letter of a paragraph (p. 128):


  <xsl:template match="para">
   <p><img src="fancy{substring(.,1,1)}.gif">
   <xsl:value-of select="substring(.,2)" /></p>
  </xsl:template>


  ignoring any transcription errors on my part, i can see how this
would incorporate a fancy letter graphic for the paragraph's first
letter, but what about the rest of the paragraph?

  if there's more markup (say, with docbook), it would seem
that none of the markup in the rest of the paragraph would be
processed.  stuff like <emphasis> or <firstterm> or stuff like
that since, after that graphic image, all that follows is the
substring of the remaining string value.

  am i missing something here?  or does this snippet above
not deal with further markup in the same paragraph?

rday



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