>The second question (if XSLT can be used for generic algorithms) has a dual
>answer. You can not use XSLT for anything useful without having a source
>document - so the short answer is no, it is always specific to the document
>at hand.  However, that does not mean you can not write XSL in a "modular"
>fashion, you can include a "generic" piece of XSL and you can also write
>"re-useable" named templates.

This is generally the case but not a requirement.  You can have an xslt file that references itself.  It is also not necessary that the contents be read.

for an example look at.
http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~obecker/XSLT/#eratosthenes

if you add to
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="eratosthenes.xslt"?>
the start of the file you just have to load it to calculate the primes.

Edward Middleton

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