However, another approach I have seen is to build the regular expression methodically, for example with a sequence of variables:

<xsl:variable name="number">\d+</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="string">"[^"]*"</xsl:variable>
<xsl:vairable name="number-or-string" select="{$number}|{$string}"/>

<xsl:analyze-string select="." regex="{$number-or-string}">
    <xsl:matching-substring>
        <xsl:choose>
           <xsl:when test="matches(.,$number)">......
           <xsl:when test="matches(.,$string)">......

--
*John Lumley* MA PhD CEng FIEE
john@xxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:john@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
on behalf of Saxonica Ltd