You might be wondering whether the node-set() function will be part of [XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0]. The answer is no, but don't worry. The authors of XSLT 2.0 made an important decision: result tree fragments are gone. There will be no need to use the node-set() function in XSLT 2.0 as you can operate directly on XML fragments stored in a variable, as on any other node-set. Regardless, you should put the node-set() function in your bag of tools as it will take several years before XSLT 2.0 will be deployed as widely as XSLT 1.0 is deployed today.