Martin,

Thank you for the reply. I finally got it to work once I figured out that 
the spaces in the select must be enclosed in single-quote (apostrophe) 
characters.


-- 
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Pearson Software Consulting LLC
www.cpearson.com
(email on the web site)

"Martin Honnen" <mahotrash@y...> wrote in message 
news:eG7XImYjHHA.4032@T......
> Chip Pearson wrote:
>> I am considering using XSLT to take existing XML data files and creating 
>> text files that  will be imported to other programs. These import files 
>> must be formatted text not XML. For example, vendor numbers must be 12 
>> digits padded on the left with 0's and product names must be 30 
>> characters padded on the right with spaces. Is there a way using XSLT to 
>> pad out a value to a specified length using a specified padding 
>> character? I can't have the formatted values in the XML data itself 
>> because one XML node value will be going to multiple output text files 
>> each with its own formatting requirements.
>
>   <xsl:param name="spaces"
>     select="                              "/>
>            <!-- 30 space characters -->
>
> Now if you have an element ProductName you can do e.g.
>
>   <xsl:value-of select="concat(ProductName, substring($spaces, 1, 30 - 
> string-length(ProductName)))"/>
>
> You could put that stuff in a template and call it as needed.
>
>
> -- 
>
> Martin Honnen --- MVP XML
> http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/