when a root element has an attribute of namespace like this:
<root xmlns="www.somewhere.com">
...
<somenode>...<somenode>
...
</root>
how come in when I ran my stylesheet on in this xml, it cannot reach the children of the root.
<xsl:template match="/">
 <xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="*">
 <xsl:element name="name(.)">
  <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
  <xsl:apply-templates/>
 </xsl:element>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="somenode">

</xsl:template>
when I debug the process using altova, I can see that it does not really match the node. how come?

This is a FAQ: see http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/sect2/N...tml#d6476e1012

An unprefixed name in a path expression or match pattern refers to an element in no namespace. To match an element in a namespace, you need to use a prefix, even if it's the default namespace.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
Author, XSLT Programmer's Reference and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference