Many thanks, I wasn't aware of the codepoints-to-string() function which does
exactly what I was after.

My original example was corrupted because I'm sending via hotmail and forgot
to escape the angle brackets!! As you say, mechanically calculating the
hexadecimal code
point and translating it is labourious but straightforward.

<!--function  hex:hex2string() recursively translates hex into ascii, uses
hex:hex2char to translate individual bytes-->
<xsl:function name="hex:hex2string" as="xs:string">
<xsl:param name="hexstring" as="xs:string"/>
<xsl:choose>
  <xsl:when test="string-length($hexstring) gt 2">
    <xsl:value-of select="concat(hex:hex2char(substring($hexstring, 1, 2)),
hex:hex2string(substring($hexstring, 3)))"/>
  </xsl:when>
  <xsl:otherwise>
    <xsl:value-of select="hex:hex2char(substring($hexstring, 1, 2))"/>
  </xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:function>

<!--function  hex:hex2char() translates a byte as hex into an ascii char-->
<xsl:function name="hex:hex2char" as="xs:string">
<xsl:param name="hexchar" as="xs:string"/>
<xsl:value-of>
      <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '20'"><xsl:text>
</xsl:text></xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '21'">!</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '22'">"</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '23'">#</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '24'">$</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '25'">%</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '26'">&</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '27'">&apos;</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '28'">(</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '29'">)</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '2A'">*</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '2B'">+</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '2C'">,</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '2D'">-</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '2E'">.</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '2F'">/</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '30'">0</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '31'">1</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '32'">2</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '33'">3</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '34'">4</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="substring($hexchar, 1, 2) = '35'">5</xsl:when>

etc

Steven Hentschel
_________________________________________________________________

http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/msnnkmgl0010000002ukm/direct/01/