Thanks! That worked great. I still don't understand why I couldn't use a
variable as the argument of the select attribute though. Anyway, much thanks

Mike 



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adam Turoff [mailto:ziggy@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 12:36 PM
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re:  Using variables in xsl:sort select attribute
> 
> 
> On Thu, May 24, 2001 at 12:01:50PM -0400, Mike McGraw wrote:
> > <xsl:template match="customerList">
> > <xsl:variable name="sortby" select="@sortby">
> > 
> > <xsl:for-each select="person">
> > <xsl:sort select="$sortby"/>
> > 	<tr>
> > 	<td><xsl:value-of select="name" /></td>
> > 	<td><xsl:value-of select="age" /></td>
> > 	</tr>
> > </xsl:for-each>
> > 
> > </xsl:template>
> > 
> > However, this doesn't work. The parser ignores the sort 
> instruction. Am I
> > permitted to use a variable as the argument for the select 
> attribute of the
> > sort?
> 
> It looks like select="$sortby" is a constant expression, so 
> the results
> are in their original order.
> 
> Try this instead (yes, it's ugly, but it sorts):
> 
> 	<xsl:for-each select="person/*[name() = $sortby]">
> 	<xsl:sort select="."/>
> 		<tr>
> 		<td><xsl:value-of select="../name" /></td>
> 		<td><xsl:value-of select="../age" /></td>
> 		</tr>
> 	</xsl:for-each>
> 
> Z.
> 
> 
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> 

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