> Wendell explained that in the message that you quoted.
> 
>   <xsl:function name="bib:footcite" as="xs:string">
>     <xsl:param name="footciteable" as="element()"/>
>     <xsl:number level="any" select="$footciteable"/>
>   </xsl:function>
> 
> he said
> 
>   In a function, I believe this means passing in your context 
> node as a 
>   parameter and changing context to it explicitly before 
> invoking xsl:number. 

I haven't been following this thread all that closely but the select
attribute of xsl:number means it's no longer constrained to work on the
context node.

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