i'll give it a try, i think some places it'll be at the end
of an XPath expression, but maybe I can work round that

> yes but you only need it to be a function if you use it 
> embedded inside
> a larger XPath expression.
> 
> something like /a/b[bcp:fixDate(.)='today']/x/y/z
> 
> If you just want to apply it in lots of places, can't you justdo
> 
> <xsl:template match="a|b|c">
>  <xsl:value-of 
> select="concat(substring(.,3,2),substring(.,6,2),substring(.,9,2))"/>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> David
> 

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