You've got the data in the variable OK, I think: it's what you do with it
next that's the problem. You are processing the contents of the variable
like this:

	<xsl:template match="/">
		<xsl:apply-templates select="ms:node-set($sorted)/*"
mode="main"/>
  	</xsl:template>
  	<xsl:template match="item" mode="main">
  		<xsl:value-of select="."/>
  	</xsl:template>

which is going to display the textual content, just as you are observing.
I've forgotten what you actually want as your output, but try changing that
value-of to copy-of to see what's actually in there.

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Robb [mailto:john_ok@xxxxxx]
> Sent: 26 July 2005 08:24
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  Save the sorted xml in a variable
>
> How is it possible to save the sorted xml in a variable and
> then apply
> to it some xsl elements.
> I'm using the following xsl but it doesn't work.I want to sort it by
> @sector and @subsector(see xml file bellow).In $sorted I just see the
> values of elements in <data> tags at the end/beginning.
> xsl:
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
>   xmlns:ms="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt">
> 	<xsl:output media-type="xml"/>
> 	<xsl:variable name="sorted">
> 		<xsl:apply-templates mode="copy" select="data"/>
> 	</xsl:variable>
> 	<xsl:template match="@*|node()" mode="copy">
> 		<xsl:copy>
> 			<xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()">
> 				<xsl:sort select="@sector"/>
> 				<xsl:sort select="@subsector"/>
> 			</xsl:apply-templates>
> 		</xsl:copy>
> 	</xsl:template>
> 	<xsl:template match="/">
> 		<xsl:apply-templates
> select="ms:node-set($sorted)/*" mode="main"/>
>   	</xsl:template>
>   	<xsl:template match="item" mode="main">
>   		<xsl:value-of select="."/>
>   	</xsl:template>
> </xsl:stylesheet>
>
> AND the XML :
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
> <data>
> 	<item id="i1"	sector="s1"	subsector="u1">561</item>
> 	<item id="i10"	sector="s3"	subsector="u4">15</item>
> 	<item id="i22"	sector="s2"	subsector="u2">1234</item>
> 	<item id="i11"	sector="s1"	subsector="u2">123</item>
> 	<item id="i17"	sector="s1"	subsector="u3">165</item>
> 	<item id="i61"	sector="s2"	subsector="u1">346</item>
> 	<item id="i12"	sector="s2"	subsector="u5">3425</item>
> 	<item id="i2"	sector="s3"	subsector="u4">78</item>
> 	<item id="i14"	sector="s3"	subsector="u4">51</item>
> 	<item id="i21"	sector="s1"	subsector="u5">346</item>
> 	<item id="i39"	sector="s3"	subsector="u2">463</item>
> 	<item id="i44"	sector="s2"	subsector="u3">151</item>
> 	<item id="i89"	sector="s1"	subsector="u1">451</item>
> 	<item id="i81"	sector="s2"	subsector="u4">771</item>
> 	<item id="i36"	sector="s2"	subsector="u5">5654</item>
> 	<item id="i27"	sector="s3"	subsector="u3">362</item>
> 	<item id="i15"	sector="s1"	subsector="u5">234</item>
> 	<item id="i18"	sector="s3"	subsector="u2">73</item>
> 	<item id="i51"	sector="s3"	subsector="u5">567</item>
> 	<item id="i26"	sector="s1"	subsector="u4">17</item>
> 	<item id="i95"	sector="s3"	subsector="u5">67489</item>
> 	<item id="i13"	sector="s1"	subsector="u3">54</item>
> 	<item id="i71"	sector="s1"	subsector="u3">2</item>
> 	<item id="i23"	sector="s2"	subsector="u1">345</item>
> 	<item id="i7"	sector="s2"	subsector="u1">67</item>
> 	<item id="i80"	sector="s1"	subsector="u3">7754</item>
>
>          <sector id="s1">Sector 1</sector>
> 	<sector id="s2">Sector 2</sector>
> 	<sector id="s3">Sector 3</sector>
>
> 	<subsector id="u1">Subsector 1</subsector>
> 	<subsector id="u2">Subsector 2</subsector>
> 	<subsector id="u3">Subsector 3</subsector>
> 	<subsector id="u4">Subsector 4</subsector>
> 	<subsector id="u5">Subsector 5</subsector>
> </data>
>
>
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