> Why do you need the node-set() extension for that?
> 

If $table is a result tree fragment, XSLT 1.0 doesn't allow it to be
accessed using a path expression of the form 

$table/entry[...]//

Instead you either have to do

xx:node-set($table)/entry[...]//

or

document('')/*/xsl:variable[@name='table']/entry[...]//

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/