Looking for advice on using xalan to process xml

[sk ask <ar...@yahoo.com>]

Hi, I would like to know a good way to process this
kind of proposed xml

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<nodes>
<node path="item1[/info/@nameRef]:item2[/info2/@desc]>
</node>
<node path="itemFromRefAbove[/info2/@name2ref]/>
</nodes>

I would like to parse the content of the path
attribute
via an external c function. This content is used to
find the item1 element in another xml file. Once, it
is found need to evaluate the expression in [] on
this node/element. The result of evaluating the first
path could yield an element on which the next path
expression could be used and so on.

Any opinions on this would be appreciated.