David/Syd: I tried replacing the value-of with <xsl:number level="any"
count="content"/>, but it returned nothing. I'm sure I'm using it
wrong though so I'll have myself a read on xsl:number.
Syd: Sorry about the misplaced match. I tried it myself now and
actually got the same as you.
Syd/Michael: I'll try to strip down my stylesheet to localize the
problem further, then I'll post it back here.

Thanks
Jostein

2009/10/23 Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> My guess (and it's a completely wild one) is that you aren't applying
> templates to the note element in the source tree as you have shown it, but
> to a copy of the note element in some smaller tree, probably a tree rooted
> at the para element.
>
> To confirm that we would need to see more of the stylesheet. Or, within the
> match="note" template, do
>
> <xsl:message><xsl:copy-of select="/"/></xsl:message>
>
> to see what tree you are processing at the time.
>
> Regards,
>
> Michael Kay
> http://www.saxonica.com/
> http://twitter.com/michaelhkay
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jostein Austvik Jacobsen [mailto:josteinaj@xxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: 23 October 2009 11:27
>> To: xsl-list
>> Subject:  XPath problem with getting all ancestors
>>
>> I've got a document like this:
>>
>> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
>> <document>
>>       <article>
>>               <meta>
>>                       <title>Title</title>
>>               </meta>
>>               <content>
>>                       <headline>Headline</headline>
>>                       <para>
>>                               <note id="1">text</note>
>>                       </para>
>>               </content>
>>       </article>
>> </document>
>>
>> And in a template for the note tags I'm trying to use the
>> ancestor axis to get the list [ para , content , article ].
>> However, I only seem to get [ para ] with ancestor::* and [ para , ""
>> ] with ancestor::node().
>> When I test it like this:
>>
>> <xsl:template match="note">
>>               ancestors="<xsl:value-of select="count(ancestor::*)"/>"
>>               preceding="<xsl:value-of select="count(preceding::*)"/>"
>>               contentNum="<xsl:value-of
>> select="count(preceding::content)"/>"
>> </xsl:template match>
>>
>> ...I get ancestors="1", preceding="2" and contentNum="0" as output.
>>
>> What I actually need to do is to count the number of content
>> nodes preceding the current note (relevant for the input XML
>> note numbering scheme). I did so earlier in the document (for
>> referencing the actual
>> notes) when matching document like this:
>>
>> <xsl:template match="document">
>>       (...)
>>       <xsl:for-each select="//note">
>>               <note>
>>                       <xsl:attribute name="id"><xsl:value-of
>> select="count(ancestor::content/preceding::content)"/></xsl:attribute>
>>                       <p><xsl:apply-templates/></p>
>>               </note>
>>       </xsl:for-each>
>>       (...)
>> </xsl:template>
>>
>> So here I get access to all of the notes ancestors. In
>> retrospect I could probably have used
>> select="count(preceding::content)" instead, but still...
>>
>> How come that I cannot access the notes ancestors from my
>> note template?
>>
>> Regards
>> Jostein