This would never happen if the type of the variable is declared as a
manner of a systematic habbit:

<xsl:variable name="defs" as="element()*">
<xsl:copy-of select="doc('lsb/content/glossary-1.1.1.xml')//tr"/>
<xsl:copy-of select="doc('lsb/content/modules-1-glossary.xml')// tr"/>
<xsl:copy-of select="doc('lsb/content/modules-2-glossary.xml')// tr"/>
<xsl:copy-of select="doc('lsb/content/modules-3-glossary.xml')// tr"/>
<xsl:copy-of select="doc('lsb/content/modules-4-glossary.xml')// tr"/>
</xsl:variable>

Even more, there is no need to copy all these nodes. One can just
reference them, even in XSLT 1.0 (just omit the "as" attribute):

 <xsl:variable name="defs" as="element()*" select =
   "
   document('lsb/content/glossary-1.1.1.xml')//tr
|
  document('lsb/content/modules-1-glossary.xml')//tr
|
  document('lsb/content/modules-2-glossary.xml')//tr
|
  document('lsb/content/modules-3-glossary.xml')//tr
|
  document('lsb/content/modules-4-glossary.xml')//tr
  "
 />

thanks,
-Rob

--
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 Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Robert Koberg <rob@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

ufff... nevermind. I needed to do:

<xsl:apply-templates select="$defs/*">


On Jan 9, 2009, at 4:48 PM, Robert Koberg wrote:

Hi, (using saxon9)

I have a few pages that each contain a table of definitions. The tables
look like (they do not have a namespace):

<table border="0" cellspacing="0">
   <tr>
      <td>
         <p>absenteeism</p>
      </td>
      <td>
         <p>frequent or habitual absence from school</p>
      </td>
   </tr>
....

Can I gather up all of the TR elements, like my defs variable below (or
some other way) and apply-templates on them (while sorting)? The stylesheet
below causes an error "Too many nested apply-templates calls. The stylesheet
may be looping." at the <xsl:apply-templates select="$defs">

What am I doing wrong here?

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
version="2.0">

<xsl:variable name="defs">
<xsl:copy-of select="doc('lsb/content/glossary-1.1.1.xml')//tr"/>
<xsl:copy-of select="doc('lsb/content/modules-1-glossary.xml')// tr"/>
<xsl:copy-of select="doc('lsb/content/modules-2-glossary.xml')// tr"/>
<xsl:copy-of select="doc('lsb/content/modules-3-glossary.xml')// tr"/>
<xsl:copy-of select="doc('lsb/content/modules-4-glossary.xml')// tr"/>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:template match="/">
 <glossentries>
   <xsl:apply-templates select="$defs">
     <xsl:sort select="normalize-space(td[1]/p/text())"/>
   </xsl:apply-templates>
 </glossentries>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="tr">
<xsl:variable name="term" select="normalize-space(td[1]/p/ text())"/>
<xsl:variable name="file-name" select="translate($term, ' ', '-')"/>
<glossentry file-name="{$file-name}">
<term>
<xsl:value-of select="$term"/>
</term>
<definition>
<xsl:copy-of select="td[2]/*"/>
</definition>
</glossentry>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

thanks,
-Rob