Jim and fellow Neos,
For XSLT 1.0, *the* place to look is at the XPath 1.0 Recommendation. (In
addition to learning from the fine words on this list.) http://www.w3.org ...
A synopsis:
Five (or four and a half) data types:
Boolean
Number (including NaN)
String
Node-set
Result tree fragment
Result tree fragments may be generated and copied or processed as strings,
but may not be traversed as if they were node-sets
In XPath 1.0, implicit casting rules provide for dynamic casting of these
types to one another; for example, in a string processing context a number
can be automatically cast ("coerced") to a string. Functions also operate
on different data types, sometimes differently depending on the type
provided. (For example, document($doc) when doc is a string or node set.)
The rules for how this happens are documented in the Rec.
Node types:
root
elements
attributes
text nodes
comments
processing instructions
namespaces
Every node in a source tree has a string value, which is often used in
operations on that node when a string is called for. It is defined
differently for the different types of nodes. (For example, the string
value of a text node is the text as a string; the string value of an
element node is the concatenation of the string values of all its text node
descendants.) These rules are also not hard to learn.
For the most part, since this casting happens implicitly you only have to
think about types when things get gnarly -- which they sometimes do.
Mike just told the XSLT 2.0 story....
Regards,
Wendell
At 09:03 AM 1/19/2005, you wrote:
This might be a good time for one of the gurus on this list to briefly
explain data-types in XSLT for us n00bs.
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"Thus I make my own use of the telegraph, without consulting
the directors, like the sparrows, which I perceive use it
extensively for a perch." -- Thoreau