selected attribute in xslt drop down - xslt

Question

I have a comma separated list coming from C#, which I am parsing in XSLT and loading it as drop down. After the user selects the option from the drop down and submits the page, If other fields are not filled in the page, I try to reload the page with the selected option for this drop down.
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template name="parseString">
<xsl:param name="list"/>
<xsl:if test="contains($list, ',')">
<xsl:element name="option">
<xsl:attribute name="value">
<xsl:value-of select="substring-before($list, ',')"/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:value-of select="substring-before($list, ',')"/>
<xsl:if test="substring-before($list, ',')=$carrier">
: sel value
<xsl:attribute name="SELECTED"></xsl:attribute>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:element>
<xsl:call-template name="parseString">
<xsl:with-param name="list" select="substring-after($list, ',')"/>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
But upon reload, the selected value in the drop down is not maintained.
But I can see the text - 'sel value' meeting the condition and displayed. For example in the Image you can see the text for carrier - Metro PCS.
Any Help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
EDIT: I have tried multiple ways for selected attribute like
<xsl:attribute name="SELECTED"></xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name="SELECTED">True</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name="SELECTED">selected</xsl:attribute>
None of them seem to work.

Answer 1

Try swapping these two lines:
: sel value
<xsl:attribute name="SELECTED"></xsl:attribute>
to be
<xsl:attribute name="SELECTED"></xsl:attribute>
: sel value
I think you are trying to add an attribute to the ": sel value" text node which obviously won't work.
EDIT
Taking a closer look at your template I think it is an issue like suggested above (adding an attribute to a text node).
Try this:
<xsl:element name="option">
<xsl:attribute name="value">
<xsl:value-of select="substring-before($list, ',')"/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:if test="substring-before($list, ',')=$carrier">
<xsl:attribute name="SELECTED"></xsl:attribute>
: sel value
</xsl:if>
<xsl:value-of select="substring-before($list, ',')"/>
</xsl:element>
When your if is true it is trying to add an attribute to the text node added by the value-of. All of your attribute additions need to come before adding any child nodes, be they text or otherwise.