[xsl] Using xsl:variable and replace() to remove specific characters.

Hi

I've been using xslt on and off for a few years, but not for long enough to 
make me feel like I've moved on from 'novice' status yet. The problem I'm 
grappling with at the moment is really making feel like I don't understand even 
the fundamentals yet!

What I'm trying to do is process some xml of which this is a fragment:

<aff id="aj266199af2">
  <label>2</label>National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Chile<xref 
ref-type="fn" rid="aj266199afn4"><sup>9</sup></xref>; <ext-link 
ext-link-type="email" id="aj266199em4">email address here</ext-link>
</aff>

<!-- snip -->
<fn id="aj266199afn4">
  <label>9</label>
  <p>The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National 
Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated 
Universities, Inc.
  </p>
</fn>


The problem is the trailing semi-colon between the <xref> & <ext-link> elements.

Previously to remove characters like this I have seen this sort of thing 
successfully employed elsewhere:

<xsl:variable name="searchStr" select="'[:;,\.\s]+$'"/>
<xsl:variable name="replaceStr" select="''"/>

<!-- snip -->

<xsl:variable name="affilStr">
        <xsl:apply-templates select="key('key_allElementsById' , .)"/>
</xsl:variable>
<affil id="{.}">
        <xsl:value-of select="replace($affilStr , $searchStr , $replaceStr)"
/>


However the above xml snippet is dealt with by this:

<xsl:for-each select="//aff">
        <affil id="{label}">
           <xsl:apply-templates />
        </affil>
  </xsl:for-each>

... and this is the output:

<affil id="2">National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Chile<footnote pos="affil" 
id="9">The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National 
Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated 
Universities, Inc.</footnote>; </affil>

However if I try to employ the same method to remove the semi-colon:

<xsl:variable name="searchStr" select="';\s*$'"/>
<xsl:variable name="replaceStr" select="''"/>

   <xsl:variable name="nameStr">
     <xsl:apply-templates/>
   </xsl:variable>
   <affil id="{label}">
           <xsl:value-of select="$nameStr"/>
        </affil>

The result is as follows:

      <affil id="2">National Radio Astronomy Observatory, ChileThe National 
Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation 
operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.</affil>

We've lost the semi-colon (excellent!) but also structure of the xml, the 
<footnote> tags. :-(

Would anyone be able to comment on my approach and point out what would be a 
more sensible approach?

I'm using saxon to process the xml with xslt v2.

Many thanks

Richard

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