> 
> I have several references in my stylesheet to a pattern that 
> resembles:
> 
> Node[@name='AA' or @name='BB']
> 
> With time, I continuously need to update this pattern to 
> include newer attributes @name='CC', @name='DD' and so on.
> 

This will become much easier in XSLT 2.0 with functions:

<xsl:function name="with-matching-name">
  <xsl:param name="node" as="element"/>
  <xsl:result as="xs:boolean" 
    select="$node/@name = ('AA', 'BB', 'CC')"/>
</xsl:function>

<xsl:...... select="Node[with-matching-name(.)]

Michael Kay
Software AG
home: Michael.H.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxx
work: Michael.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 


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