In VB.NET, the assignment of one variable to another variable is something as simple as:

Dim abc = ids

where abc is the new created variable to which we're assigning the value of the variable ids.

In XSL code, the syntax is a bit indirect:

<xsl:variable name="abc" select="ids"/>

where abc is the new created variable to which we're assigning the value of the XML node ids.

So, the select statement acts as =.

The thing becomes much more complicated if the value to be assigned is passed as parameter ids. In that case, the assignment is:

<xsl:variable name="abc" select="$pars/*/add[@key='ids']/@value" />

where @value is the actual value of the parameter ids.