RE: [xsl] variable in filter doesn't work??

["Passin,Thomas B. (Tom)" <tpassin at mitretek dot org>]

[Carter, Will]
> 
> why doesn't this work?
> -----------------------
> <xsl:variable name="filter" select='"cat = 
> &apos;zoro&apos;"'/> <xsl:value-of select="$filter"/>
> 	<tr>
> 		<td><xsl:value-of select="cat"/></td>
> 		<td><xsl:value-of select="dog"/></td>
> 		<td><xsl:value-of select="fish"/></td>
> 	</tr>
> </xsl:for-each>

Aside from the fact that you have omitted the contents on the
xsl:for-each start tag so we cannot be sure what you wrote, you cannot
use a variable as a path expression.  You are probably saying the
equivalent of

<xsl:for-each select='person["cat=&apos;zoro&apos;"]'>

This does not do any filtering because the predicate has to be either a
number (to select a particular node by its position) or an expression.
An expression gets evaluated as a boolean.  A non-empty string evaluates
to "true", so your statement is equivalent to

<xsl:for-each select='person[true]'>

This will select all person nodes as you have seen.

You could write

<xsl:variable name='filter' select='"zoro"'/>
<xsl:for-each select='person[cat=$filter]'>

This is not quite what you are after,it seems.  You could get the effect
you are trying for this way:

<xsl:variable name='filter-element' select='"cat"'/>
<xsl:variable name='filter-value' select='"zoro"'/>
<xsl:for-each select="person[*[name()=$filter-element and
text()=$filter-value]]">

Cheers,

Tom P

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