> I kind of understand what Scott means but I'm not sure I agree - in
> the above example doesn't the template match pattern in the latter
> method give you same level of context as the select in the former?


I think that what Scott was refering to is (for example) relying on
context such as the current node.


<xsl:apply-templates select="some-nodes[some-filter]"/>
<xsl:template>....

and

<xsl:apply-templates select="some-nodes"/>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
<xsl:template match="some-nodes"/>
<xsl:template match="some-nodes[some-filter]">....


may be sort of equivalent (modulo use of position() ) if some-filter is
fixed, but often it depends on a local xpath


<xsl:apply-templates select="some-nodes[@id=current()/@id]"/>

for example can't so easily be moved down on to the match.

Looking down my stylesheets I seem to use both ways (and for-each (and
more and more, for-each-group) in about equal measure.

David

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