Difference between * and node() in XSLT

Question

What's the difference between these two templates?

<xsl:template match="node()">  <xsl:template match="*"> 

Answer 1

<xsl:template match="node()"> 

is an abbreviation for:

<xsl:template match="child::node()"> 

This matches any node type that can be selected via the child:: axis:

• element

• text-node

• processing-instruction (PI) node

• comment node.

On the other side:

<xsl:template match="*"> 

is an abbreviation for:

<xsl:template match="child::*"> 

This matches any element.

The XPath expression: someAxis::* matches any node of the primary node-type for the given axis.

For the child:: axis the primary node-type is element.

Answer 2

Just to illustrate one of the differences, viz that * doesn't match text:

Given xml:

<A>     Text1     <B/>     Text2 </A> 

Matching on node()

<xsl:stylesheet     xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"     version="1.0">     <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>      <!--Suppress unmatched text-->     <xsl:template match="text()" />      <xsl:template match="/">         <root>             <xsl:apply-templates />         </root>     </xsl:template>      <xsl:template match="node()">         <node>             <xsl:copy />         </node>         <xsl:apply-templates />     </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> 

Gives:

<root>     <node>         <A />     </node>     <node>         Text1     </node>     <node>         <B />     </node>     <node>         Text2     </node> </root> 

Whereas matching on *:

<xsl:template match="*">     <star>         <xsl:copy />     </star>     <xsl:apply-templates /> </xsl:template> 

Doesn't match the text nodes.

<root>   <star>     <A />   </star>   <star>     <B />   </star> </root>