Changes in 902b stylesheet parser

Question

Just noticed that in 902b a variable declared in a stylesheet is not visible within an included stylesheet.
All previous version have worked so that the variable IS visible.
ie declare a variable in the main stylesheet.
xsl:variable name="dictionary" select="/page/page_content/dictionary/row[language=/page/language]"
in another stylesheet that is included ie
xsl:include href="expertsessiondetail.xsl"
try to reference the variable
xsl:value-of select="$dictionary/expert"
this throws an error saying that variable dictionary is not declared.
OK so I can work around this BUT what I want to know is is this "by design" ie it is intended to work that way in future or is this a mistake and it will revert to normal with the next release.
Rob

Answer 1

Ok. This was a bug that was fixed in 9.0.2. It was working incorrectly in all previous versions of our XDK.
The testcase is:
m.xml
<x/>
m.xsl
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<xsl:include href="m2.xsl"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:variable name="x" select="'x'"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$x"/>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
m2.xsl
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<!-- this template references variable $x -->
<xsl:template match="x">
<xsl:value-of select="$x"/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>My test was to transform m.xml using m.xsl...
Trying this with SAXON 6.4.3 gives:
Error on line 4 of file:/C:/temp/m2.xsl:
Variable x has not been declared
Transformation failed: Failed to compile stylesheet. 1 error detected.Trying this with MSXSL 4.0 Beta 2 gives:
msxml4.dll: A reference to variable or parameter 'x' cannot be resolved. The variable or parameter may not be defined, or it may not be in scope.Trying this with Oracle XSLT 9.0.2B gives:
file:/C:/temp/m2.xsl<Line 4, Column 32>: XSL-1031: (Error) Variable not defined:
'x'.
oracle.xml.parser.v2.XPathException: Variable not defined: 'x'.
Error occurred while processing m.xml: file:/C:/temp/m2.xsl<Line 4, Column 32>:
XSL-1031: (Error) Variable not defined: 'x'.So these all look consistent. The rules of variable scoping in XSLT do not provide that the variable $x is visible to the included template.
You'd have to either make x a global stylesheet parameter/variable, or declare a parameter in the <xsl:template match="x"> and use <xsl:apply-templates> with a nested <xsl:with-param> to pass the param value from one template to another.