Re: [xsl] Xpath Syntax Issue

[Peter Flynn <pflynn@xxxxxx>]

Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
>On 23/06/2012 22:05, G. Ken Holman wrote:
>> At 2012-06-23 16:40 -0400, John A. Walsh wrote:
>>> This seems to work:
>>>
>>> <xsl:template match="pets/animal[species[normalize-space(.) = 
>>> 'fish']]"/>
>>
>> Which would be the same as:
>>
>>   <xsl:template match="pets/animal[normalize-space(species) =
>'fish']"/>
>>
>> ... which might be easier for someone maintaining the stylesheet to 
>> understand.
>>
>> Of course the processor may optimize both expressions to be the same 
>> executing code, but from a maintenance perspective, keeping 
>> expressions simpler would have more benefit.
>>
>
>But the two aren't equivalent if an animal element has more than one 
>species child. If that's the case, the first expression works and the 
>second one doesn't.

I don't know if an animal can be both flesh and fowl,  so to speak. Perhaps during a reclassification more radical than the poor old fruit fly underwent recently. 

If not,  I would argue that this makes a good example of choosing between character data and attribute. Possibly with a maintained authority list for ID values for species and other taxonomical data (which would allow multiple values as IDREFS). I just have this old-fashioned gut reaction that reference data (if this is that) should be as robust as possible. 

///Peter 
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