XML in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Multiple Matches with |

You often want to match more than one type of element or attribute but not all types. For example, you may want an XSLT template that applies to the profession and hobby elements but not to the name, person, or people elements. You can combine location paths and steps with the vertical bar (|) to indicate that you want to match any of the named elements. For instance, profession|hobby matches profession and hobby elements. first_name|middle_initial|last_name matches first_name, middle_initial, and last_name elements. @id|@xlink:type matches id and xlink:type attributes. *|@* matches elements and attributes but does not match text nodes, comment nodes, or processing-instruction nodes. For example, this XSLT template rule applies to all the nonempty leaf elements (elements that don’t contain any other elements) of Example 9-1of Example 9-1:

<xsl:template match="first_name|last_name|profession|hobby">
  <xsl:value-of select="text( )"/>
</xsl:template>