Iterate over temporary document using xslt - xslt-2.0

Question

I'm trying to create a temporary document containing some data, so I don't have it scattered all over the xsl file. I'm trying to loop through this data in the following manner:
<xsl:variable name="stuff">
<foo name="bar" key="83"/>
<foo name="baz" key="73"/>
<foo name="qux" key="71"/>
<foo name="quux" key="72"/>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:for-each select="$stuff/foo" >
<xsl:value-of select="#key" />
</xsl:for-each>
The for-each block is never entered. I've tried to mimic the method described here. I also looked into using node-set(), but as far as I can tell that function is only required for XSLT version 1.0?

Answer 1

Tim C gave a complete answer about this in the following thread: Use a xsl:for-each over an xml to decide which label-value pairs are displayed?. I suggest you have a look at it.
Basically for XSLT 2.0 you can include the XML which you entered now into a <xsl:variable> directly into your XSLT:
<my:stuff>
<foo name="bar" key="83"/>
<foo name="baz" key="73"/>
<foo name="qux" key="71"/>
<foo name="quux" key="72"/>
</my:stuff>
Then in your XSLT where needed declare a variable:
<xsl:variable name="stuff" select="document('')/*/my:stuff" />
So the XSLT will be something like:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:my="my" exclude-result-prefixes="my">
<my:stuff>
<foo name="bar" key="83"/>
<foo name="baz" key="73"/>
<foo name="qux" key="71"/>
<foo name="quux" key="72"/>
</my:stuff>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:variable name="stuff" select="document('')/*/my:stuff"/>
<xsl:for-each select="$stuff/foo">
<xsl:value-of select="#key" />
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>