Hi Bridger,
http:send-request(<http:request method='get' href='http://export.arxiv.org/oai2?verb=Identify'/>)/h:response/@status fails.
The reason is that http:send-request returns an http:response element as first item. "/h:response" is just another writing for "/child::h:response", As the response has no other response child, you won’t get any result. This is what you can do instead: 1. Use the self axis: let $data := http:send-request(<http:request method='get' href='http://export.arxiv.org/oai2?verb=Identify'/>) return $data/self::http:response/@status 2. Return the status attribute from the first result (which will always be the http:response element): let $data := http:send-request(<http:request method='get' href='http://export.arxiv.org/oai2?verb=Identify'/>) return head($data)/@status Hope this helps, Christian