select - XSLT for segmenting XML -

i have xml goes this:

<company>     <employee name="john"/>     <employee name="sarah"/>     <employee name="kim"/>     <employee name="karl"/>     <employee name="tom"/>     <employee name="jim"/>     <employee name="sandy"/> </company> 

how can use xslt template selecting first n nodes, 3 example, can get:

<company>     <employee name="john"/>     <employee name="sarah"/>     <employee name="kim"/> </company> 

in oxygen xml editor, can use following xpath achieve that:

/company/employee[position() < (last() - count(/company/employee)+4)] 

but need use xslt in case
help

how can use xslt template selecting first n nodes, 3 example, can get:

<company>      <employee name="john"/>      <employee name="sarah"/>      <employee name="kim"/>  </company> 

the short answer: knowing little bit xpath , xslt.

complete(but still short) answer:

this transformation:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/xsl/transform">  <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>  <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>   <xsl:template match="node()|@*">   <xsl:copy>    <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>   </xsl:copy>  </xsl:template>   <xsl:template match="employee[position() > 3]"/> </xsl:stylesheet> 

when applied on provided xml document:

<company>     <employee name="john"/>     <employee name="sarah"/>     <employee name="kim"/>     <employee name="karl"/>     <employee name="tom"/>     <employee name="jim"/>     <employee name="sandy"/> </company> 

produces wanted, correct result:

<company>    <employee name="john"/>    <employee name="sarah"/>    <employee name="kim"/> </company> 

do note:

1. the identity rule used copy every node "as-is".

2. there 1 specific template overriding identity template. matches employee element position in node-list greater 3. template has empty body, discarding matched elements.