I'm trying to generate a template which matches types derived by extension from a base type. A simple example (using types from the xml schema primer) would be a match that matches Address, any subtype of Address (such as USAddress and UKAddress), and any subtypes of the subtypes (etc.).

I'm working under the assumption that a XSLT2 schema-aware processor would be able to do this.

I think you can use e.g.
Note that for types defined in a namespace you need e.g.
--
  Martin Honnen
  Microsoft MVP - XML

Yes, if you declare

<xsl:template match="element(*, address)">

then it will match any element whose type is address, or a type derived form address by restriction or extension.

Unfortunately the current Saxon release has a bug in its handling of this case, see:

https://sourceforge.net/tracker/inde...72&atid=397617

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

Thanks, the use of element() worked for me. Interestingly, I had tries that previously without success. It appears that a validation error in my XSL file was causing that template to silently (no error or warning) not work and thus have the engine (AltovaXML) default to a non-schema-aware template. After re-checking (and fixing) my XSL everything worked. Knowing what the right answer was really helped.

Yes, I've noticed that behaviour in AltovaXML too. The same happens in Saxon, of course, if you simply forget to switch validation on for the input document. It's a good idea to write your stylesheet so there is a template rule for element(*, xs:untyped) that catches the fact that untyped data has been supplied, and throws an error.

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