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Re: [xsl] Capturing result of in a variable

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This was probably the first time in my years of working with XSLT that it occurred to me to capture <xsl:apply-templates/> in a variable (I'll never be an XSLT wizard). I'm wondering: is the procedure above guaranteed to work in all cases, or is it possible that the <xsl:copy-of select="$appliedTemplates"/> could ever return something different from <xsl:apply-templates/> in this context?

Doing xsl:copy-of on the variable is perfectly safe. Doing apply-templates or other processing on it can be risky - because the copied nodes differ from the original by having fewer ancestors, so logic that looks outside the immediate subtree will behave differently.

On a related point, people often use xsl:message to produce diagnostic output. I often find it more helpful to put the diagnostic data in the result document itself, so you'll see me writing stuff like

<xsl:variable name="v" select="....."/>
<debug var="$v">
<xsl:copy-of select="$v"/>
</debug>

Michael Kay
Saxonica

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