<xsl:when test="[BaseSymbol=<xsl:value-of select="$comsym"/>">

an XSL stylesheet has to be well formed XML so clearly you can't have an
xsl:value-of element inside an attribute.

the syntax to access a variable is the syntax you used in the select
expressioon, $xxx

so
the above would be

          <xsl:when test="BaseSymbol=$comsym">

(having also deleted a spurious [)
which would test the strinbg value of a BaseSymbol element against the
global variable or parameter comsym

which might be what you want (although you don't show a definition of
comsym, perhaps yoou meant $basesym here?)

Also

<A>
         <xsl:attribute name="HREF">headline.asp?storyid=<xsl:value-of
select="BaseSymbol"/>
         </xsl:attribute>

could rather more simply be written

<A HREF="headline.asp?storyid={BaseSymbol}">


David



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