Thanks to all who responded to my question!

Jarno's solution was the one I'm going with, thanks Jarno.

Which I'll echo here, in case this helps anyone else too...

  <xsl:value-of select="count(/list/student[contains(translate(name,
'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'john')])"
/>

woudl give a count of all the students whose name has "john" in it
somewhere.

My mistake had been to put the path inside the translate, which now
seems obviously stupid, ie:

  <xsl:value-of select="count([contains(translate(/list/student/name,
'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'), 'john')])"
/>

I think I had ommitted the square brackets as well :(

Thanks again all

Cheers

Zak

--
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Zak McGregor
http://www.carfolio.com - Specifications of cars online. Over 7000!
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Of course my password is the same as my pet's name.  
My macaw's name was Q47pY!3, but I change it every 90 days.
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