XSLT 2.0. Loop inside a Function - xslt-2.0

Question

Hitting my wall here...
I've got the following data where a Primary Employee may have multiple dependents. I need to create a function that will match the Employee's SSN (ab:SSN) against the Dependent_SSN and determine if one of them is a 'Spouse'. If so, then we'll return the Dependent_SSN of the 'Spouse'.
If not, we'll move on and return the next non-'Spouse' Dependent_SSN.
I'm trying to create a function as I think I'll need this more than once. The code snippet resides inside of an existing template that is doing other looping functionality.
I've tried this but Oxygen returns an error:
<xsl:function name="ab:PQB">
<xsl:param name="EE_SSN">
</xsl:param>
<xsl:for-each select="/ab:Report_Data/ab:Report_Entry[ab:Employee_ID=$EE_SSN]/ab:Report_Data/ab:Report_Entry[ab:Employee_ID=$EE_SSN]ab:dependents/ab:Dependent_SSN">
</xsl:for-each>
The Error returned is :
"Engine name: Saxon-PE 9.3.0.5
Severity: fatal
Description: Unexpected token name "wd:dependents" beyond end of expression"
I know I need to test the higher level SSN against looping through the dependents, but like I said "I'm against my wall" :)
Data is here:
<ab:Report_Entry>
<ab:SSN>888881006</ab:SSN>
<ab:Last_Name>Smith</ab:Last_Name>
<ab:First_Name>Kimberly</ab:First_Name>
<ab:dependents>
<ab:Dependent_SSN>888881009</ab:Dependent_SSN>
<ab:Relation ab:Descriptor="Spouse">
</ab:Relation>
</ab:dependents>
<ab:dependents>
<ab:Dependent_SSN>888881004</ab:Dependent_SSN>
<ab:Relation ab:Descriptor="Child">
</ab:Relation>
</ab:dependents>
<ab:dependents>
<ab:Dependent_SSN>888881003</ab:Dependent_SSN>
<ab:Relation ab:Descriptor="Child">
<ab:ID ab:type="Related_Person_Relationship_ID">Child</ab:ID>
</ab:Relation>
</ab:dependents>
<ab:dependents>
<ab:Dependent_SSN>888881001</ab:Dependent_SSN>
<ab:Dependent_ID>1032D-4</ab:Dependent_ID>
<ab:Relation ab:Descriptor="Child">
<ab:ID ab:type="Related_Person_Relationship_ID">Child</ab:ID>
</ab:Relation>
</ab:dependents>
</ab:Report_Entry>
Thank you to any advice!

Answer 1

You might want to define the type of the input parameter and the type of the function result and then you should write a function body returning a value of that type. Currently your description sounds rather procedural, that is not going to work with XSLT/XPath.
As for the error, I think in the path /ab:Report_Data/ab:Report_Entry[ab:Employee_ID=$EE_SSN]/ab:Report_Data/ab:Report_Entry[ab:Employee_ID=$EE_SSN]ab:dependents/ab:Dependent_SSN you need one more slash /ab:Report_Data/ab:Report_Entry[ab:Employee_ID=$EE_SSN]/ab:Report_Data/ab:Report_Entry[ab:Employee_ID=$EE_SSN]/ab:dependents/ab:Dependent_SSN to have a syntactically correct path. That should avoid the syntax error you get but is not likely to return the result you want.