> I figured it should be most robust to match on the 
> namespace-uri rather 
> than a prefix shorthand, since the latter can be chosen rather 
> arbitrarily by an author, whereas the namespace-uri has a 
> more clearly 
> defined meaning. Is this reasoning sound?

No. The prefix shorthand is just that; a shorthand for the actual value.
If you declare 
  <xyz:anyelement xmlns:xyz="http://www.zyz.com"/>

in the source XML, you can still match
  <xsl:template match="foo:anyelement" xmlns:foo="http://www.zyz.com"/>

in your XSLT, even though the prefixes differ.

What happens is that the prefix are expanded during processing, something
like this
   <{http://www.zyz.com}:anyelement/> in the XML

and
   <xsl:template match="{http://www.zyz.com}:anyelement"/> in the XSLT.

Askild Aaberg Olsen


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