Hi, i have the following when statement, inside the test I'm tring to use '$rowNo' parameter inside the string, because I'm using a recursive loop. Everything else works great but I want to be able to join, 1, 2 & 3 together.

1) <xsl:when test="contains(substring(//helper/row/row
2) $rowNo
3) /text(), $helperNo,2), '--')">

<xsl:when test="contains(substring(//helper/row/row$rowNo/text(), $helperNo,2), '--')">

I've tried concat (dont work, comes up with NaN2 in the output):

<xsl:when test="contains(concat(substring(//helper/row/row,$rowNo,/text(), $helperNo,2)), '--')">

-----------------------------------------
Input:
//helper/row

<row num="1">
<row1>01020304--0506070809--10111213</row1>
<row2>14--------15----------16------</row2>
<row3>17------18------------19------</row3>
<row4>20------21--------2223--------</row4>
<row5>------24--------25------------</row5>
</row>


------------------

Any help much much appreicated.


Tried the following too:

<xsl:variable name="starter" select="'substring(//helper/row/row'" />
<xsl:variable name="finisher" select="'/text()'" />
<xsl:variable name="finisher2" select="',$helperNo,2)'" />

...
<xsl:value-of select="$starter+$rowNo+$finisher+$finisher2"/>
...


Doesn't work either! :(

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - Just want to know if this is possible really (and how if available).

Thank you.

Variables in XSLT work like in languages such as C, Java, or Javscript: they can be used anywhere you can use a *value*. They don't work like variables in a shell-script or other macro language, where they can replace any part of the text of an expression.

Using element names like <row1>, <row2> is pretty poor XML design. This is what attributes are designed for: <row nr="2">. But if you're saddled with this kind of structure, you can use

.../*[name() = concat('row', $rownr)]/...

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

Again you are making the mistake of thinking that a variable holds a piece of XPath expression text. It doesn't - it holds a value. Use variables only where you might use say a number 2 or a string literal 'fred'.

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

Thanks Michael, much appreciated.