It looks like you just forgot the curly braces in the colspan
attribute-value-template. Try this:

        <th bgcolor="#C4C4FF"
colspan="{($colend-$colst)+1}"><xsl:apply-templates/></th>

~ Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: V.Ramkumar [mailto:v.ramkumar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2009 9:47 PM
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [xsl] Table Span not working

Hi List,

I am doing XSL style sheet for XML view. In table, span not able to get,
Please correct me any mistake in the below code.

 XSL
=====
The below my code not giving expected result/span in IE.

    <xsl:template match="thead/row/entry">
        <xsl:variable name="colst"
select="translate(@namest,'col','')"/>
        <xsl:variable name="colend"
select="translate(@nameend,'col','')"/>
        <th bgcolor="#C4C4FF"
colspan="($colend-$colst)+1"><xsl:apply-templates/></th>
    </xsl:template>

 XML
======
Four column table contains a header spanned row like below.

<row row-type="straddle-head">
<entry align="center" nameend="col3" namest="col2">PIN-a
&#x0394;&#x03C0;
(mN/m)</entry>
<entry align="center" nameend="col5" namest="col4">PIN-b
&#x0394;&#x03C0;
(mN/m)</entry>
</row>

Regards,
Ramkumar