RE: [xsl] following-sibling and xsl:sort

Subject: RE: [xsl] following-sibling and xsl:sort
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:40:01 -0400
At 06:20 PM 4/29/2005, Mike wrote:
> > Therefore, any problem, which has solution using the xxx:node-set()
> > extension function should have a solution without using it.
>
> I tend to disagree with that statement.

Me too. Turing completeness is not the same as closure over the data model.
To take an obvious example, there is no way of creating a result tree that
contains an unparsed entity, even though the data model allows unparsed
entities to exist.

Closer to the hypothesis in question, I don't believe it is possible in XSLT
1.0 without the xx:node-set() extension to create a result tree containing a
namespace that is declared in neither the source document nor the
stylesheet, if the result tree contains no element or attribute whose name
is in that namespace.

As so often, I'm grateful to Michael for helping me to refine my understanding. But I note nevertheless that the cited counter-examples here both deal with constructs that might be considered in some light to be "second-class citizens" in XSLT 1.0 -- unparsed entities because they were on the way out, and namespaces because they were on the way in (without being fully settled yet).


More to the point, I'm still intrigued by issues closer to the sort-and-then-group or group-and-then-sort problems that get raised so often here. I understand (or more precisely, people whose understanding I respect tell me) that these kinds of problems are theoretically tractable without xxx:node-set() -- yet the mind boggles at how. Pipelining just seems so much easier.

Cheers,
Wendell


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