gistfile1.xslt

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:libxslt="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/namespace"
    version="1.0" exclude-result-prefixes="libxslt">
    <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
    <xsl:variable name="test">
        <a>
            <b/>
        </a>
    </xsl:variable>
    <xsl:template match="/">
        <out>
            <xsl:value-of select="count( libxslt:node-set($test)//* )"/>
        </out>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>