select="preceding-sibling::*[1]/contact/name/firstName"
File: Data.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="Transform.xslt" type="text/xsl"?>
<employees xmlns="http://www.domain.com/namespace/employee">
<title>Employee Data File</title>
<employee eid="1" dept="programming">
<contact addInfo="info1">
<name>
<firstName>Joe</firstName>
<middleName int="B">Brian</middleName>
<lastName>Smith</lastName>
</name>
<address>
<street>1 Drive</street>
<city>Vancouver</city>
<state>BC</state>
<zipcode>80210</zipcode>
</address>
<phone>
<tel type="wk">111-1111111</tel>
<tel type="hm">222-222222</tel>
<fax>303-4667357</fax>
</phone>
<email>a@a.com</email>
</contact>
<hireDate>2008-10-29</hireDate>
</employee>
</employees>
File: Transform.xslt
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="html" indent="yes" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<html>
<head>
<title>Employee Output</title>
</head>
<body>
<xsl:apply-templates select="employees/employee" />
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="employee">
<xsl:variable name="choose">
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when
test="preceding-sibling::*/contact/name/firstName">
<xsl:value-of
select="preceding-sibling::*[1]/contact/name/firstName" />
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>Nobody</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:variable>
<p>
The employee element node that is the preceding sibling of
<xsl:value-of select="self::*/contact/name/firstName" />
is for the following staff member:
<xsl:value-of select="$choose" />
</p>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Output:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Employee Output</title>
</head>
<body></body>
</html>
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