Unfortunately you can not use variables in match patterns in xslt1
(this restriction will be lifted in XSLT2)
However this is not really a restriction just an inconvience.

You can have 

<xsl:stylesheet.......>

<xsl:param name="chap"/>

so then you can set name="chapter1" on the command line of xalan or in
its java API.

You can not do
<xsl:template match="manual/chapter[@name=$chap]">
but you can do
<xsl:template match="manual/chapter">
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="@name=$chap">
   do something with the special chapter
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
 do something (or nothing) with other chapters
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

David



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