XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference, 4th Edition (202 page)

Changes in 2.0

The
select
attribute has been added: This allows a node other than the context node to be numbered.

XSLT 2.0 defines error conditions that must be reported when incompatible attributes are used (for example,
level
and
value
cannot appear together). In XSLT 1.0, redundant attributes were silently ignored. XSLT 2.0 also defines the result of the instruction more precisely in corner cases, for example when there is no node that matches the
from
pattern.

New options have been added in XSLT 2.0 for formatting numbers as words (so you can output
Chapter
Three
) and as ordinal numbers (so you can output
Fit
the
First
or
3rd
Act
).

Format

Position

is an instruction. It is always used within a sequence constructor.

Attributes

Name	Value	Meaning
value optional	XPath Expression	A user-supplied number to be formatted (instead of using a node sequence number).
select optional	XPath Expression	Selects the node whose sequence number is to be output (by default, the instruction numbers the context node).
level optional	single , multiple or any	Controls the way in which a sequence number is allocated based on the position of the node in the tree.
count optional	Pattern	Determines which nodes are counted to determine a sequence number.
from optional	Pattern	Determines a cut-off point, a point in the document from which sequence numbering starts afresh.
format optional	Attribute value template returning a format string, as defined below	Determines the output format of the number.
lang optional	Attribute value template returning a language code, as defined in XML for the xml:lang attribute	Indicates a language whose conventions for number formatting should be used.
letter-value optional	Attribute value template returning alphabetic or traditional	Distinguishes between different numbering schemes used with the same language.
ordinal optional	Attribute value template returning a string	If the attribute is present and is not a zero-length string, it indicates that ordinal numbering is required. For English, a suitable value is yes ; for inflected languages, it indicates the required ending; for example, -o or -a in Italian.