RE: XSLT/XPATH jargon

[Kay Michael <Michael.Kay@xxxxxxx>]

> > RESULT TREE FRAGMENT: Some part of the output resulting from
> > triggering a template.
> 
> If `Output' here means output from the stylesheet, this is 
> misleading as the RTF may be stored in a variable and never output at all.

Indeed. An RTF is a tree. It is not a fragment of a tree, and it is
certainly not a fragment of the result tree. It is part of the state
(working data) of a stylesheet during its execution. It is created by
instantiating a non-empty xsl:variable element (or xsl:param or
xsl:with-param) with no select attribute, and it can be used in two ways: by
referencing that variable in an xsl:copy-of instruction, which copies the
RTF tree (minus its root node) to the current position in the current output
tree (which may be the final result tree or another RTF), or by referencing
it in any other context, in which case it is converted to a string.

(The concept of the current output tree and its current position are not
defined in the spec but I think they are needed in any formal definition.)

Mike Kay


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