<xsl:sort select="index-of($sortorder, @ID)"/>

where

<xsl:variable name="sortorder" 
  select="for $t in tokenize(/source/sortorder, ',\s*') return
xs:integer($t)"/>

This isn't going to be very efficient if sortorder is a long list, in that
case you probably want to use keys to speed it up. 

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: marentxml [mailto:mailing.lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 20 May 2008 07:17
> To: Xsl-List
> Subject:  sort by predefined order
> 
> hi
> 
> is there any way to sort elements by a predefined order? i'd 
> like to come from
> 
> <source>
>    <sortorder>46, 21, 39, 27, 17</sortorder>
>    <elements>
>      <element ID="17"/>
>      <element ID="21"/>
>      <element ID="27"/>
>      <element ID="39"/>
>      <element ID="46"/>
>    </elements>
> </source>
> 
> the most elegant way to
> 
> <target>
>    <elements>
>      <element ID="46"/>
>      <element ID="21"/>
>      <element ID="39"/>
>      <element ID="27"/>
>      <element ID="17"/>
>    </elements>
> </target>
> 
> thanks in advance for any help.
> 
> frank