Sorting XSLT variable date - xslt

Question

Sorry if my explanation in the last 'question' was a little rough, I'll give it another shot.I'm really new to xsl.
Through a series of substrings I have extracted the date field by storing it in a variable called $releasedate, I output this by using <xsl:value-of select="$releasedate" /> which would display dd/mm/yyyy e.g. 29/03/2010 in a 'for each' loop as shown below.
My xml is structured similar to below,
<item>
<title>Title Goes Here</title>
<description>test goes here.....<b>Release Date:22/20/2010</b> more text</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Title Goes Here</title>
<description>More test goes here.....<b>Release Date:22/20/2010</b> more text</description>
</item>
I would like to be able to sort by the value of what is stored in $releasedate.
I think maybe it would look like this below
<xsl:sort select="$releasedate" order="descending" />
I hope this makes a little more sense, my appologies again for my lack of knowledge in this.
Below is my xsl structure
<xsl:for-each select="item">
<xsl:sort select="pubDate"/>
<xsl:if test="position() < 5 ">
<!-- grabs items 1 to 5 -->
<xsl:variable name = "releasedatestart" >
<xsl:value-of select="substring-after(description,'Release Date:</b>')"/>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name = "releasedate" >
<xsl:value-of select="substring-before($releasedatestart,'</div>')"/>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name = "displaynamestart" >
<xsl:value-of select="substring-after(description,'Display Name:</b>')"/>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name = "displayname" >
<xsl:value-of select="substring-before($displaynamestart,'</div>')"/>
</xsl:variable>
<div style="margin:0px;background-color:#f2eff3;border:1px solid #ded6df;">
<xsl:variable name = "start" >
<xsl:value-of select="substring-after(description,'Description:</b>')"/>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name = "title" >
<xsl:value-of select="substring($start,0,100)"/>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name = "pagelink" >
<xsl:value-of select="substring(link,1,61)"/>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name = "pageurl" >
<xsl:value-of select="$pagelink"/>
<xsl:value-of select="title"/>.aspx
</xsl:variable>
<div style="min-height:50px;">
<div class="column" id="feeddate">
<xsl:value-of select="$releasedate" />
</div>
<div class="column" id="displayname">
<xsl:value-of select="$displayname" />
</div>
<div class="column" id="feedtitle">
<xsl:value-of select="$title" disable-output-escaping="yes"/>
<a>
<xsl:attribute name="href">
<xsl:value-of select="$pageurl" />
</xsl:attribute>
..Read More
</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>

Answer 1

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="items">
<items>
<xsl:apply-templates>
<xsl:sort select=
"substring(substring-after(description, 'Release Date:'),7)"
data-type="number" order="descending"/>
<xsl:sort select=
"substring(substring-after(description, 'Release Date:'),4,2)"
data-type="number" order="descending"/>
<xsl:sort select=
"substring(substring-after(description, 'Release Date:'),1,2)"
data-type="number" order="descending"/>
</xsl:apply-templates>
</items>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
when applied on this document:
<items>
<item>
<title>Title1</title>
<description>text1 .....
<b>Release Date:22/12/2010</b> more text
</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Title Goes Here</title>
<description>More test goes here.....
<b>Release Date:23/12/2010</b> more text
</description>
</item>
</items>
produces the wanted, sorted result:
<items>
<item>
<title>Title Goes Here</title>
<description>More test goes here.....
<b>Release Date:23/12/2010</b> more text
</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Title1</title>
<description>text1 .....
<b>Release Date:22/12/2010</b> more text
</description>
</item>
</items>
Explanation:
Use of substring-after() and substring().
Multiple <xsl:sort> children of <xsl:apply-templates>.
Identity transform.