Thank you for your response. I did try this inside template <item> but
it fails to get me the right result.

<xsl:template match="item">
<xsl:if test="preceding::*[1][self::test1]">

<xsl:text>Found test1</xsl:text>
</xsl:if>

On 2/11/07, xslt. new <xslt.new@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi all:
>
> I have an XML input:
>
> <test1>
> <item></item>
> <text></text>
> <item></item>
> </test1>
>
> How do I check if the previous node name for <item> is test1 or text?

select="preceding::*[1][self::item1 or self::text]"

cheers
andrew