Is that parser specific or is it just an XSLT thing in regards to attributes?
It's an XML thing.
The XML spec is explict that attribute order is insignificant (just
syntax sugar like whether an attribute value is marked with " or ',
something else taht isn't typically reported by an XML parser)
because of that the XSLT (or actually XPath) spec is explicit in warning
you that while you attribute nodes (as all nodes) have an ordering in
document order, that order is not specified (but it is stable over a
given run, if you to select="@*" twice in the same stylesheet (on the
same element) you get the nodes in the same order, but you might not get
them the same next time.
In practice of course you do get them in the same order if you use the
same processor as most of them are deterministic and give the same output
given the same input, but the order used varies greatly between
processors and often isn't the order used in the source file, as often
attributes are put in some kind of hash table so the order they come
out just exposes some internals of the hash implementation rather than
anything related to the original order.
David
--
The LaTeX Companion
http://www.awprofessional.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0201362996
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0201362996/202-7257897-0619804
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