Thanks for the suggestion.  I tried it out but it still includes text elements
that are descended from the second system element.  I need to skip over
everything below the second system element.

In psuedocode, what I need is this:
descendant::text[skip all text elements that are descendants of second system
element]

-----Original Message-----
From: Antsnio Mota [mailto:amsmota@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 1:56 PM
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re:  excluding descendants (and all of their descendants
as well)


<xsl:value-of
select="/techinfo/system/descinfo/para-seq/para/*[not(self::system)]

if i 'm not mistaken...

On 8/31/05, Woods, Christopher <cwoods@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> How does one find all text elements that are descendants of the first para
element but exclude any text element that is a descendant of the second system
element?
>
> <techinfo>
>   <system>
>     <descinfo>
>       <para-seq>
>         <para>
>           <text>The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy systems
engineer.</text>
>           <text>Hello world.</text>
>           <style>
>             <text>In the matter of Jardyce v. Jardyce:</text>
>           </style>
>           <system>
>              <descinfo>
>                  <para-seq>
>                      <para>
>                           <text>Blah, blah, blah...</text>
>                            <text>more gibberish.</text>
>                            <style>
>                                <text>Nasty, Brutish, and Short Attorneys at
Law</text>
>                            </style>
>                         </para>
>                       </para-seq>
>                   </descinfo>
>                </system>
>             </para>
>          </para-seq>
>       </descinfo>
>    </system>
> </techinfo>
>
> Thanks very much.