> Do you use an XSLT 1.0 processor that supports EXSLT? Then you could use http://www.exslt.org/regexp/functions/match/index.html.
> Firefox 3.0 has support for that match function. With IE and MSXML you can use the implementation provided at the exslt.org site.
>



EXSLT is not really needed:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

	<xsl:template match="date">
	  <xsl:variable name="vUnits" select=
	   "translate(., '0123456789', '1111111111')"
	   />
	 <xsl:value-of select=
	  "contains(substring-after($vUnits, '1111'), '1111')"
	  />
	</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Applied on this xml document:

<t>
	<date>23 July 2001-April 2006</date>
	<date>July 1996</date>
	<date>unknown</date>
</t>

The result is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
	true
	false
	false



--
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
---------------------------------------
Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
---------------------------------------
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
-------------------------------------
Never fight an inanimate object
-------------------------------------
You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what
you're doing is work or play




On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Martin Honnen <Martin.Honnen@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Joyce Celeste Chapman wrote:
>
>> Using XSL 1.0, is there a way I can search the contents of an element to find series of 4-digit numbers? Then if there are two sets of 4-digit numbers, I would like to select those values in order (I'll be outputting them somewhere else as a date span), if there is only one 4-digit set I'll need to output that a different way. Example of XML below. Thanks to all in advance for the help!
>>
>> <date>23 July 2001-April 2006</date>
>> <date>July 1996</date>
>> <date>unknown</date>
>
> Do you use an XSLT 1.0 processor that supports EXSLT? Then you could use http://www.exslt.org/regexp/functions/match/index.html.
> Firefox 3.0 has support for that match function. With IE and MSXML you can use the implementation provided at the exslt.org site.
>
>
> --
>
>        Martin Honnen
>        http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/