Question

I have a stylesheet where I would prefer to insert predefined string variable in xsl text element, but can’t find any pointers while searching the web.

For example:

<xsl:variable name="var" select="node()/ref/text()"/>
...
<xsl:text>Some text where I want to append $var variable desperately</xsl:text>
...

I tried with $var, ($var), {$var}…

Answer 1

Some text where I want to include the value of <xsl:value-of select='$var'/>.

Note that <xsl:text> is only needed to control the behavior on whitespace. Most of the time, you can simply type text and just include this element when the result is not what you expected – I guess knowing the rules for when to use <xsl:text> doesn’t hurt, however. 🙂 (And it’s not complicated: Use <xsl:text> if otherwise, your text nodes would only have white space or if they would include additional whitespace you want to avoid at either end.)

EDIT: Note that whitespace in variables doesn’t need xsl:text for protection when used, that is only for the XSL parsing step:

<xsl:variable name="newline"><!-- can be global -->
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:when test="starts-with(., $newline)">
  ...
</xsl:when>

Here's some text<xsl:value-of select='$newline' />with formatting.