Sometimes you might want to copy a node to the output.

xsl:copy will copy the matching node to the output.

It only applies to the current node and not its children or attributes.

Example:

<xsl:template match="credit-card">
<xsl:copy>XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

applied to:

<credit-card type='visa'>1234-1234-1234-1234</credit-card>

would create:

<credit-card>XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX</credit-card>