You can manipulate values (strings) just like in programming languages.

substring-before("1999/04/01","/") returns "1999"

substring-after("1999/04/01","/") returns "04/01"

contains("big geek","geek") returns true.

The can all use XPath expressions too:

• substring-before(@date,"/")

• substring-after(book/pubdate,$delimiter)