I have a list of level1 elements that contain level2 elements. Both have @name and @sort attributes. Is it possible to sort the level twos based on either @name or @sort depending on the value of the parent level1's @name?

Easy in version 2.0:

<xsl:sort select="if (../@name = 'thing') then @name else @sort"/>

More convoluted in 1.0:

<xsl:sort select="@name[../../@name = 'thing'] |
                  @sort[../../@name != 'thing']"/>

(The first .. takes you back from the attribute to the level2 element, the second takes you back to the level1)

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

Thanks as always for the speed & quality.