Hi Sean,

> Specifically, is there a more general way (than specifying
> test="../@attr", test="../../@attr") to select the first ancestor
> travelling back up the tree that defines a specific attribute?

Sure: select all the ancestor elements:

  ancestor::*

filter them to select only those with style attributes:

  ancestor::*[@style]

and then pick the first of those that you find:

  ancestor::*[@style][1]

(You can use [1] to select the nearest to the element you're on -- the
last in document order -- because the ancestor axis is a "reverse"
axis.)

In your stylesheet, you could just do:
  
<xsl:template match="page">
  <page>
    <xsl:copy-of select="@* | ancestor::*[@style][1]/@style"/>
    <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </page>
</xsl:template>

Cheers,

Jeni

---
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com/


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list