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

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

title	description	date	version	versionLabel	category	syntax	tags
remove()	Returns a new sequence with the item at a specified 1-based position removed, without modifying the original sequence.	2026-04-18T00:00:00Z	2.0	XSLT 2.0	sequence function	remove(sequence, position)	xslt reference xslt2 xpath

Description

remove() produces a new sequence that is identical to the input sequence except that the item at the specified 1-based position is omitted. Positions are 1-based. The original sequence is not modified.

If position is less than 1 or greater than the length of the sequence, the entire sequence is returned unchanged — no error is raised.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
sequence	item()*	Yes	The source sequence.
position	xs:integer	Yes	The 1-based position of the item to remove.

Return value

item()* — the sequence with the item at position omitted. The length is count($sequence) - 1 if position was valid.

Examples

Removing the first item

Stylesheet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:variable name="nums" select="(10, 20, 30, 40, 50)"/>
    <!-- Remove item at position 1 -->
    <xsl:variable name="tail" select="remove($nums, 1)"/>
    <result>
      <xsl:value-of select="$tail" separator=", "/>
    </result>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<result>20, 30, 40, 50</result>

Removing a specific element from a node sequence

Input XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<menu>
  <item>Home</item>
  <item>About</item>
  <item>Blog</item>
  <item>Contact</item>
</menu>

Stylesheet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

  <xsl:template match="/menu">
    <!-- Remove the 'Blog' item (position 3) -->
    <xsl:variable name="items" select="item"/>
    <xsl:variable name="filtered" select="remove($items, 3)"/>
    <nav>
      <xsl:for-each select="$filtered">
        <link><xsl:value-of select="."/></link>
      </xsl:for-each>
    </nav>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<nav>
  <link>Home</link>
  <link>About</link>
  <link>Contact</link>
</nav>

Notes

• remove() only removes one item per call. To remove multiple items by position, chain calls or use subsequence() combined with sequence concatenation.
• To remove items by value rather than position, use a filter predicate: $seq[. != $value].
• Out-of-range positions (< 1 or > length) are silently ignored; the full sequence is returned.
• Equivalent to ($seq[position() lt $pos], $seq[position() gt $pos]) but more readable.

See also

• insert-before()
• subsequence()
• index-of()
• reverse()