On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 14:19, Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> I want to break it into 5 files for punctuation&numbers, a-f,
>> g-l, m-r, and s-z.
>
> Part of the solution might be to use a grouping key created using
>
> translate(., 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz', 'aaaaaaggggggmmmmmmssssssss')
>

Having had a chance to play with this on the outer xsl:for-each-group I did:

 <xsl:for-each-group select="$persNamesWithoutKey"
group-by="translate(substring(normalize-space(lower-case(.)),1,1),'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz012345678[,+(.&gt;&lt;&amp;&amp;amp;
', 'aaaaaaggggggmmmmmmssssssss999999999---------') ">

and with some minor cosmetic changes through the rest that did it
absolutely perfectly for my needs.

I post this just for posterity (i.e. anyone else searching for a
similar answer and in several months when I've forgotten how/why I did
something like this!)   ;-)

Many thanks,

-James