I don't understand the question.


After this:

    <xsl:for-each select="r">

you are only hgoing to get each r element once.

so what is "a" here and why does it appear twice?


Sorts out the records, but by nesting.
something like
  a
  b
  ...
  p
  a   (I.e. this is at a lower level than the previous one)


as a side issue 9or pethaps it's not, and this is were the  nesting
comes from, isn't 

    <xsl:copy>
      <!-- Including any attributes it has and any child nodes -->
      <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
    </xsl:copy>

just <xsl:copy-of select="."/>

David

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