Cannot get xslt to output an (&) even after escaping the character

Question

I am trying to create a query string of variable assignments separated by the & symbol (ex: \"var1=x&var2=y&...\"). I plan to pass this

Answer 1

You should note, that you can use disable-output-escaping within the value of node or string/text like:

or

Texas A&M

Note the single quotes in the xsl:value-of.

However you cannot use disable-output-escaping on attributes. I know it's completely messed up but, that's the way things are in XSLT 1.0. So the following will NOT work:

Because in the fine print is the quote:

Thus, it is an error to disable output escaping for an or element that is used to generate the string-value of a comment, processing instruction or attribute node;

emphasis mine.

Taken from: http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#disable-output-escaping