HI there,

The following is an example of my source xml

<CBAParty>
  <Employment jobType="Cyclists">
    <RelatedKey ID="1"/>
  </Employment>
</CBAParty>
<Party>
  <Employment primaryJob="Yes"/>
    <Key ID="1">
  </Employment>
   <Employment primaryJob="No"/>
    <Key ID="2">
  </Employment>
</Party>

Desired result
<Party>
  <Employment primaryJob="Yes" jobType="Cyclists">
    <Key ID="1">
  </Employment>
   <Employment primaryJob="No">
    <Key ID="2">
  </Employment>
</Party>

This is how I am trying to get the data but it doesnt work

<xsl:copy-of select="/CBAParty/Employment[following-sibling::RelatedKey/@ID=employmentID]/@*"/>

where employmentID = 1 (I created a variable that is assigned when a template matches <Party/Employment>)

This assignment is within the template match = "Party/Employment"
<xsl:variable name="employmentID" select="current()/Key/@ID"/>

Could anyone kindly explain what i am doing wrong? Thks

You are doing several things wrong.

Firstly, if there is a variable called employmentID then the way to reference it is as $employmentID - note the "$".

Secondly, if the variable is initialized in a different template, then it will be out of scope, so you will not be able to reference it. (More fundamentally, you are assuming a specific order of execution which is not guaranteed)

Thirdly, there is no Employment element in your source XML that has a following-sibling called RelatedKey, so this predicate will always be false.

You can get the result you want as follows (not tested):

<xsl:template match="*">
  <xsl:copy>
    <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
    <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="CBAParty"/>

<xsl:template match="Party/Employment">
  <xsl:copy>
    <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
    <xsl:copy-of select="key('e', Key/@ID)/@jobType"/>
    <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:key name="e" match="CBAParty/Employment" use="RelatedKey/@ID"/>

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