Using XSLT to convert one XML file to another, I need to do a bit of data re-formatting such as:

- converting dates from one format to another (yyyymmdd to dd mmmmm yyy)
- unpacking delimited text
- reformating names from SMITH/JOHNMR to separate tags
etc.

Whats the best way of doing this type of thing? I know that I can use (or try to!) Concat & Substring functions for the basic ones. Is it with scripts?

Any advice would be grateful.

Thanks in advance:)

XSLT 2.0 is much stronger for string manipulation, as it supports regular expressions.

In 1.0 you have to make do with functions such as substring-before, concat, etc. But you can do quite a lot with them, especially if used with recursive templates.

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