Use the function local-name, for example <xsl:value-of
select="local-name(.)"/>

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Catherine Winston [mailto:cwinston@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 16 April 2009 20:04
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  is there a way to extract the text from a tag?
> 
> My overall question: Is there a way to extract CREATOR from 
> the <dc:creator> tag, using xsl?
> 
> I am trying to produce a csv document from an existing xml 
> file (Sample
> 1 below); using my xsl (Sample 2 below) I have been able to 
> display the information as a csv file (Sample 3 below), but 
> now I am noticing that I do not have the first line of 
> information that I need (the field names)
> - and that that information is living within the tags of the xml file.
> 
> Sample 1 (from my xml file):
> <?xml version="1.0" 
> encoding="UTF=16"?><digital_entity><pid>261315</pid>
> 	<record xmlns=.................>
> 	<dc:title>Olymic Zone</dc:title>
> 	<dc:title>exterior; The Athlete (life-size; high relief 
> in concrete and stone); outside Stadium</dc:title>
> 	<dc:title></dc:title>
> 	<dc:creator>Gregotti, Vittorio</dc:creator>
> 	<dc:creator>birth: 1927</dc:creator>
> 	.............
> 
> Sample 2 (from my xsl file):
> <?xml verison="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:..................>
> 	<xsl:output method="text" encoding="UTF-8" indent="no" />
> 	<xsl:template match="/">
> 		<record>
> 			<pid>
> 				<text>"</text><xsl:value-of
> select="//pid"/><text>","</text>
> 			</pid>
> 			<xsl:for-each select="//dc:title">
> 				<dc:title>
> 					<xsl:value-of
> select="."/><text>","</text>
> 				</dc:title>
> 			</xsl:for-each>
> 			<xsl:for-each select="//dc:creator">
> 				<dc:creator>
> 					<xsl:value-of
> select="."/><text>","</text>
> 				</xsl:for-each>
> 				..................
> 
> Sample 3 (from my csv file): (this is the very beginning of 
> the first line of text within my csv file) "261315","Olympic 
> Zone","exterior; The Athelete (life-size; high relief in 
> concrete and stone); outside Stadium","","Gregotti, 
> Vittorio","birth:1927",....................
> 
> I have now fathomed that I need to have - 
> pid,title,title,title,creator,creator,........... as my first 
> line of text.
> 
> Another 'problem' is that each record that I am going to be 
> working with will not have the same tags or the same number 
> of the same tags (e.g.
> one record may have three <dc:creator> tags but another may 
> have only one <dc:creator> tag, or none at all) - so if I 
> could extract the 'text'
> from the tags themselves in the process of creating each csv 
> file - that would solve my problem.
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated!
> Katie