Converting xmlstring into a node-set

Question

Hi,
Is there any xsl function which could take an xml string and convert into a node-set?
Or could any function be written to achieve this kind of result?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi,
Seems no one understands my need in my post yet. Let me elaborate my requirement a little more...
Actually in my case, I used a variable to refer to a node set (in my actual implementation the conditions in the bracket [] are much much more complicated ), e.g.
<?variable:rows;”/ROWSET/ROW[SALARY>1000]”?>
And since the report involves a complex layout printed on pre-print forms which needs me to put the fields very precisely. I cannot use the For Each method but to extract the rows one by one, likes the following:
<?$rows[1]/ENAME?>
<?$rows[2]/ENAME?>
and put them on various position on the RTF Template.
So far so good, until I realized that the $rows node set is needed to be sorted according to ENAME.
Currently I can build a sorted list from $rows into another variable $sorted_rows as follows:
<xsl:variable name="sorted_rows"><xsl:for-each select="$rows"><xsl:sort select="ENAME"/><xsl:copy-of select="."/></xsl:for-each></xsl:variable>
But in $sorted_rows, it contains only one item which is the xml fragment of the sorted data, but not a node set.
So my question is, is there any way to convert this xml fragment into a node set so I can use the following to extract the fields?
<?$sorted_rows[1]/ENAME?>
<?$sorted_rows[2]/ENAME?>
Hope anyone can share with my some solution to this.
Thanks in advance,
Jonathan