> That was one of the permutations I tried, but since it gave me the
> same error message, 


  "Error on line 20 of file:/X:/PROJEC~1/MATRIX~1/xslt/NEFCF7~1.XSL:
  SXXP0003: Error reported by XML parser: Whitespace required before
  attributes
  Failed to compile stylesheet. 1 error detected."

see as the message says, the error comes from the xml parser, so before
xslt or its xpath regexp engine have even seen the file.

> what else could be the problem?

The version I posted was well formed, I'D guess that you didn't catch
all the cases where you had a " in a "-delimited attribute value.

What exactly is on line 20 of
file:/X:/PROJEC~1/MATRIX~1/xslt/NEFCF7~1.XSL

The version that you posted back was not well formed. i think that your
mail system (outlook??) tried to be clever and so lied to you.

I posted


select="replace(req-text,'AMPquot;','''')"

where AMP was an &

you posted back

select="replace(req-text,'"','''')"

which has a literal " in the middle of a "-delimited value.

I would guess that you mailer thought it was being helpful by showing
you 
& q u o t ; as "

People should be forced to use emacs for mail (and everything else:-)

David

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