RE: ancestor

> The // of course means search the whole document which is 
> expensive but
> if that's what you need to do, that's what you need to do. 
> (If you need
> to do it more than once, use a xsl:key to optimise that)
Unless using Saxon, in which case if you do it more than once it remembers
anyway.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/