demonstrate different ways of setting xsl:variable : variable « XSLT stylesheet « XML Tutorial

1. XML Tutorial
2. XSLT stylesheet
3. variable

File: Data.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<data>
  <chapter>Chapter A</chapter>
  <chapter>Chapter B</chapter>
  <chapter>Chapter C</chapter>
  <chapter>Chapter D</chapter>
</data>
File: Transform.xslt

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet
      version="1.0"
      xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:variable name="totalChapters" select="count(//chapter)"/>
    <xsl:template match="/">
      <TABLE>
        <xsl:for-each select="//chapter">
          <TR>
            <TD>
              <xsl:value-of select="."/>
              <xsl:text> (</xsl:text>
              <xsl:value-of select="position()"/>
              <xsl:text>/</xsl:text>
              <xsl:value-of select="$totalChapters"/>
              <xsl:text>)</xsl:text>
            </TD>
          </TR>
        </xsl:for-each>
      </TABLE>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><TABLE><TR><TD>Chapter A (1/4)</TD></TR><TR><TD>Chapter B (2/4)</TD></TR><TR><TD>Chapter C (3/4)</TD></TR><TR><TD>Chapter D (4/4)</TD></TR></TABLE>