For the (short) example data posted it does not matter but in general I
think the above should be
 <xsl:value-of select="$users[not(. = $friends)]"/>
as that is quite different from $users[. != $friends].

Is that right?  It always takes me a while to "get it" again, but I
think you only need to be concerned about != when both sides are
sequences of more than 1 item.  When the LHS is a single item, it's
ok.

So the above are equivalent.

<root>
  <Response>
    <Users>
      <Count>2</Count>
      <User>
        <Username>henry</Username>
        <Online>false</Online>
        <UserId>302</UserId>
      </User>
      <User>
        <Username>felix</Username>
        <Online>false </Online>
        <UserId>288</UserId>
      </User>
    </Users>
  </Response>
  <Response>
    <Friends>
      <Count>2</Count>
      <Friend>
        <UserId>288</UserId>
      </Friend>
      <Friend>
        <UserId>42</UserId>
      </Friend>
    </Friends>
  </Response>
</root>

	Martin Honnen
	http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/