xslt-lab/site/content/xslt/functions/xpath-contains.md

title, description, date, version, versionLabel, category, syntax, tags

title	description	date	version	versionLabel	category	syntax	tags
contains()	Returns true if the first string contains the second string as a substring, otherwise returns false.	2026-04-18T00:00:00Z	1.0	XSLT 1.0	string function	contains(string, substring)	xslt reference xslt1 xpath

Description

contains() tests whether a string includes a given substring and returns a boolean result. Both arguments are converted to strings before the comparison.

The comparison is case-sensitive and uses code-point ordering. If you need case-insensitive matching, use matches() with the i flag (XSLT 2.0+) or normalize both strings with lower-case() before comparing.

If the second argument is an empty string, contains() always returns true because every string contains the empty string.

contains() is frequently used inside xsl:if and xsl:when predicates to filter elements based on string content, or in predicates within XPath expressions.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
string	xs:string	Yes	The string to search within.
substring	xs:string	Yes	The substring to look for.

Return value

xs:boolean — true if string contains substring, false otherwise.

Examples

Filter elements by content

Input XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<articles>
  <article><title>XSLT Tutorial for Beginners</title></article>
  <article><title>Advanced XML Schema</title></article>
  <article><title>XSLT 2.0 Features</title></article>
</articles>

Stylesheet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

  <xsl:template match="/articles">
    <xslt-articles>
      <xsl:for-each select="article[contains(title, 'XSLT')]">
        <item><xsl:value-of select="title"/></item>
      </xsl:for-each>
    </xslt-articles>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<xslt-articles>
  <item>XSLT Tutorial for Beginners</item>
  <item>XSLT 2.0 Features</item>
</xslt-articles>

Conditional processing

Stylesheet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

  <xsl:template match="/articles">
    <results>
      <xsl:for-each select="article">
        <xsl:if test="contains(title, 'XSLT')">
          <match><xsl:value-of select="title"/></match>
        </xsl:if>
      </xsl:for-each>
    </results>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<results>
  <match>XSLT Tutorial for Beginners</match>
  <match>XSLT 2.0 Features</match>
</results>

Combined with other string functions

<!-- Check if a URL contains 'https' -->
<xsl:if test="contains(@href, 'https')">
  <xsl:attribute name="secure">true</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:if>

Notes

• contains() is case-sensitive. For case-insensitive checks in XSLT 2.0+, use matches(., 'pattern', 'i') or contains(lower-case(title), 'xslt').
• To check if a string starts with a value, use starts-with(). To check a suffix, use ends-with() (XSLT 2.0+) or substring().
• contains() returns true when the substring argument is empty, which can cause unexpected results in dynamic expressions.
• For complex pattern matching (wildcards, character classes), use matches() instead.

See also

• matches()
• substring()