Re: [xsl] Evaluating a node-set with select (MSXSL vs. Saxon)

Subject: Re: [xsl] Evaluating a node-set with select (MSXSL vs. Saxon)
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 17:58:33 -0400
Stan,

It looks like MSXML is doing the right thing here, and Saxon is silently turning your Result Tree Fragment into a node set for you, which (in XSLT 1.0) it should not.

The irony here is that MSXML used to do this, but when this was discovered we all howled "conformance", and they obligingly rolled it back to be strictly to the spec. Whereas Saxon, a very conformant processor, now allows it (by your account).

Just about everyone agrees it's such a powerful feature that it will be included in XSLT 2.0. But for *strict* XSLT 1.0 you should use a (proprietary) nodeset() extension (I dunno what MS calls theirs but they have one).

No doubt Mike K. will shed some light on this. (But I like to post to the list only after all the smart Brits have gone to bed ... or should have.)

Cheers,
Wendell

At 04:27 PM 4/18/2002, you wrote:
I do indeed get this using the Saxon (6.5.1), but MSXSL (4.0) tells me that
the $columns variable must evaluate to a node-set and fails to compile the
stylesheet. Can anyone tell me which XSLT engine is doing the right thing
here? I'm using the MSXSL command line utility against version 4.0 of MSXML.


======================================================================
Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML
======================================================================


XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list



Current Thread