XPATH Java String / glob matching

[nomolos9]

Hi,
Two questions. For the following XML snippet:

<slide>
<item>running</item>
<item>hi</item>
<item>40</item>
</slide>

//item[.='hi']

Will return the item node with text hi.

But, (using Java):

String s = "hi";
//item[.=s]

does not work. How do I get a Java string value in there?

Also - re matching, if the user enters a*b?c I need to return any values where * = one or more char matching and ? = exactly one char matching. I believe this is called Glob matching. Any way to do this using XML/XPath. Not sure about using XSLT within Java, but I suppose that is also a possibility.

All advice appreciated.

Thanks

Laura