Re: [xsl] Re: Keeping a running total?

Subject: Re: [xsl] Re: Keeping a running total?
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:42:09 -0400
Steve,

At 02:24 PM 7/12/2006, you wrote:
I suspect I am simply not a high-enough level user to exploit these
benefits to any degree, but I can understand their benefit.

You've already benefited! XSLT has been around since before the turn of the century, stable, and here for you to use it. It solves a great many problems easily, and for those it does not, an informed user community exists with whom you are free to brood. It's hard to imagine that all this would be true if the language were as drastically in need of amendment, at a fundamental level, as you imply.


However, I suspect that an option to make variables modifiable--at the expense of
the points mentioned--would come under wide use, quickly. =)

See http://stx.sourceforge.net/ and the links therefrom.

Also, Saxon has a variable (re-)assignment extension, saxon:assign, which you are free to use if using Saxon (a very popular, very conformant XSLT engine) -- at your own risk. (And you may have to use an older version of Saxon: see the documentation at
http://www.saxonica.com/documentation/extensions/instructions/assign.html. :-> )


The fact that these were not immediately proposed as providing obvious solutions to your problems are perhaps indicators that your speculation is incorrect -- reassigning variables is something we mostly live quite happily without.

Regards,
Wendell

*Goes away for 3 days to understand how Dimitre's solution actually works*
(Or come to Extreme Markup Languages next month in Montreal, where Dimitre will happily explain it to you. :-)

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