XML/XSLT stylesheet/character map

Use character-map

File: Data.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<artist>
  <filename>aidan_oliver</filename>
    <p delete="yes">
      <work>Innocence</work>
    </p>
    <p delete="yes">
      E
    </p>
</artist>

File: Transform.xslt
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [
  <!ENTITY start-comment "&#xE501;">
  <!ENTITY end-comment "&#xE502;">
]>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output use-character-maps="comment-delimiters" />
  <xsl:character-map name="comment-delimiters">
    <xsl:output-character character="&start-comment;"
      string="&lt;!--" />
    <xsl:output-character character="&end-comment;" string="--&gt;" />
  </xsl:character-map>
  <xsl:template match="*">
    <xsl:copy>
      <xsl:copy-of select="@*" />
      <xsl:apply-templates />
    </xsl:copy>
  </xsl:template>
  <xsl:template match="*[@delete="yes"]">
    <xsl:text>&start-comment;
    </xsl:text>
    <xsl:copy-of select="." />
    <xsl:text>&end-comment;
    </xsl:text>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Output:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><artist>
  <filename>aidan_oliver</filename>
    <!--
    <p delete="yes">
      <work>Innocence</work>
    </p>-->
    
    <!--
    <p delete="yes">
      E
    </p>-->
    
</artist>