XML to Database Inserts via XSLT

Hello Everyone,
        Well, the subject says it all really. I have
a few jobs that I -could- write perl to transform the
xml into inserts, however, I would prefer to use XSLT
and learn as I go. Another feather in my cap and all
that.

        So far, I have a small datafile something like;

       <entity>
                <name>Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria</name>
                <shortname>Dem &amp; Pop Rep Algeria</shortname>
                <ticker>ALGERI</ticker>
                <red>VZ5ACN</red>
        </entity>

        Now, I have a stylesheet which is as follows;

  <xsl:template match="entity">
        <xsl:text>INSERT INTO table1 (</xsl:text>
        <xsl:if test="string-length(name)&gt;0">
                <xsl:text>fullname,</xsl:text>
        </xsl:if>
        <xsl:if test="string-length(red)&gt;0">
                <xsl:text>red,</xsl:text>
        </xsl:if>
        <xsl:text>) VALUES (</xsl:text>
        <xsl:if test="string-length(name)&gt;0">
                <xsl:text>'</xsl:text>
                <xsl:value-of select="name"/>
                <xsl:text>',</xsl:text>
        </xsl:if>
        <xsl:if test="string-length(red)&gt;0">
                <xsl:text>'</xsl:text>
                <xsl:value-of select="red"/>
                <xsl:text>',</xsl:text>
        </xsl:if>
        <xsl:text>);</xsl:text>
  </xsl:template>


        It does work, but its probably a tad, well, 
clunky. I would prefer to know how others do this, or
have done this, or where my syntax is 'lacking'. I am
open to all and any creative or constructive critiscms.
This is my first time in really getting into XSLT, but
already I can see the benefits. 

        Is there anyway, for example, to store a 'variable'
in XSLT ? is there any equivalent to 'chop' (so I can remove
any trailing ',' from the variable) ? If i have an entity 
inside the entity, will XSLT automagically recurse into it
or do I have to specifically code recursion into the stylesheet ? 


        Regards and Many Thanks for any Pointers (no pun intended)
        Stef

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