Hello.

> <xsl:variable name="x" select="ancestor::x"/>
> <xsl:value-of select="$x[1]/@n"/>

Thanks for the comments, friends!
Michael Kay's quote of Section 3.3
makes the situation absolutely clear.

I have sent a bug report to Microsoft.

-- 
Alexander E. Gutman

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