I don't think you can create a variable variable (so to speak). What I've done in the past is create two variables and pass them as an xsl param to an xsl template. So in the call-template, I do an xsl choose to determine which of the two variables I should pass.

Would love to know if there's a better solution!

The problem is probably that your NewsItems variable content is not interpreted as xml. Possible the solution would be to replace variable value-of by copy-of.

You could check out this thread also.

>Tommy

Sebastiaan, I don't believe you can change the value of a variable after it has been set but what I am doing is trying determine what value to set.

Unfortunately no joy with your solution either Tommy

Simon, I just tried your initial code, and it seems to work without errors on my side - just with a

<xsl:value-of select="$NewsItems"/>

added.

Hope you work it out.

>Tommy

I am getting this too, and pulling my hair out!

I can't recreate this one and looking at it, it looks like it "should" work as all you are doing is treating your first variable as a string.

Might be worth coercing it to a string using string():

<xsl:variable name="SelectedStartNode" select="string(/macro/StartNode)" />

BTW, the error it throws is slightly off.  It is actually telling you to use the msxml:node-set() function. If you are trying to cycle through the NewsItems later you may need to do this to tell the XML it is working with a node-set:

<xsl:for-each select="msxml:node-set($NewsItems)/node">

How did you solve this? I'm getting the same error...

Thx!

Edited : 

Got this working, thanks to webangelo !

Hi there,

I have tried  the that code

 select="msxml:node-set($NewsItems)/node">

It is fixing Error while saving time but its is not retrivin my node-set....

is any one can help me please.......

I am having the same issue.  I want to get the root node of a content tree at level 1 but if the current page is at level 1 i want to get that.  here is my code:

<xsl:variable name="rootPageID">
  <xsl:choose>
    <xsl:when test="$currentPage/@level = 1">
      <xsl:value-of select="$currentPage"/>
    <xsl:when>
    <xsl:otherwise>
      <xsl:value-of select="$currentPage/ancestor::* [@level = 1]"/>
    <xsl:otherwise>
  <xsl:choose>

<xsl:variable name="rootPage" select="msxml:node-set($rootPageID)"/>

now i get no error but i get no content either

I was tearing my hair out with this one too, but here's a solution that works (thanks to Lee Kelleher): 

<xsl:variable name="nodes">
    <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="$collegeId != -1">
            <!-- Grab all news items that have been tagged with this school/college -->
            <root>
                <xsl:copy-of select="$currentPage/ancestor::Homepage[@isDoc]/NewsContainer[@isDoc]/DateFolder[@isDoc]/DateFolder[@isDoc]/NewsItem[@isDoc and ./schoolsColleges/XPathCheckBoxList/nodeId = $collegeId]"/>
            </root>

        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:otherwise>
            <!-- Grab all news items that have been flagged to display on home page -->
            <root>

                <xsl:copy-of select="$currentPage/ancestor::Homepage[@isDoc]/NewsContainer[@isDoc]/DateFolder[@isDoc]/DateFolder[@isDoc]/NewsItem[@isDoc and appearsOnHomepage = 1]"/>
            </root>
        </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:variable name="matchedNodes" select="msxml:node-set($nodes)/root/*"/>

 Things to note:

within the choose branches, I'm wrapping the results of <xsl:copy-of> (not value-of) with a <root></root> node. This means that my result will have a single root node, e.g. <root><item1/><item2/></root> instead of <item1/><item2/>.

I'm calling msxml:node-set to convert my result to a proper node set. This works now because there is a single root element in $nodes (that I added).

I'm using msxml:node-set($nodes)/root/* to return all nodes below my root node into $matchedNodes.

Hope that helps someone!

David

@David

It does :-)

@David you saved my night!

I've just had to return to a v4.7.1 site do an update and after a long time away from XSLT I hit this issue again. The funny thing it I keep finding my own threads when searching for these historic issues but thankfully @David provided me with the answer again! :) I owe you a beer at the UK Festival this year if you're attending?

Haha, glad you're still getting value from that post @Simon, I know that I came back to it again and again with XSLT sites. Yes I'll be at the UK Fest - see you there :)

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