> I have some valid xml embedded in a CDATA section:
You have some XML but there are no XML element's there, that is just a
string and forms identical input to XSL as the string

<element attr="100"><a>100</a><b>200</b></element>

You could use the disable-output-encoding attribute of xsl:value-of and 
if you are writing the XML to a file, it might possibly work.

Alternatively you can clean up the input befor passing it to XSLT by
using sed or some other character based eding filter to remove the 
 <![CDATA[ and ]]> then XSLT would see the elements and you'd be able to
query them in the usual way.


Either way

> I don't control the source XML s

complain to the person who does control the source:-)

David

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