Re: [xsl] Does the count() function require access to the whole subtree?

[Wolfgang Laun <wolfgang.laun@xxxxxxxxx>]

There is a term denoting the relationship between x and y, x's
ancestor, or vice versa: x and y are "in the same line of descent."

Re "overlap": Temporal operator definitions for expressing the
relationships between intervals in time take pains to denote between
"overlaps" and "includes", and I think "inclusion" is absolutely
preferrable for the node relationship under discussion, too.

For a language to have words for relatives more distant than cousin
wouldn't be very useful (except for genealogists). But some languages
do make distinctions for close relations: In Hungarian, there are two
words for "brother" and "sister" each, one denoting the older and the
other the younger sibling (which doesn't help with sexless nodes ;-) )
(Other languages may even be less distinctive that English or German.)

-W

On 14/01/2014, Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  >  In a tree, two branches that overlap are also "nested,"
>
> Agreed. But we are not in a tree!
>
> In fact, until the very end of the processing we don't know if we are
> in a tree, or not! And we don't know if we are processing a
> well-formed document or not.
>
> This is the nature of streaming and this is why we must avoid using
> terms that make this nature hidden, or impose another, illusionary
> nature of the process.
>
> What we have in practice is a string that hopefully must be the string
> representation of a fragment (because we can't see the past or the
> future-to-the-end of the string) of an XML document.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 2:44 PM, Michael Sokolov
> <msokolov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> In a tree, two branches that overlap are also "nested," or whatever the
>> more
>> precise term is that we are grasping for, so we can use the terms
>> interchangeably (in the context of a tree) without any loss of
>> denotational
>> scope. There's no need for a more precise, yet confusing for other
>> reasons,
>> word.
>>
>> If we lived on a planet where the only animals were human, we wouldn't
>> need
>> a word for humans, as long as we confined ourselves to speak about
>> animals
>> of our planet, even if we could understand the concept that there might
>> be
>> other kinds of animals on some other planet.
>>
>> By the way, in other languages, are there words for "second cousin twice
>> removed"?  English has a terrible way of referring to such familial
>> relations as my grandmother's great-grandson (who is not my son or my
>> sibling's).  Perhaps in that language there is a word for co-ancestry or
>> something.  IE two people who are related by a direct line of ancestry
>> (rather than related by marriage or on a different branch).
>>
>> -Mike
>>
>>
>> On 01/14/2014 03:34 PM, Dimitre Novatchev wrote:
>>>
>>> Well, to call something that is "nested" -- "overlapping" is probably
>>> less precise as calling a human  -- "animal" -- because a human is a
>>> true subclass of Animal, while two overlapping concepts aren't
>>> generally in a true containment relationship.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 12:23 PM, Michael Sokolov
>>> <msokolov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I know what it is that's trying to be expressed (although thank you for
>>>> the
>>>> lovely diagrams), but I disagree about the meaning of "overlap" - it is
>>>> not
>>>> nearly so precise as we might think it is, and certainly encompasses
>>>> this
>>>> situation.  In various dictionaries you will see definitions such as
>>>> "To
>>>> have one or more elements in common."  Another thought is:
>>>> "coincident,"
>>>> but
>>>> I prefer overlapping.
>>>>
>>>> -Mike
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 01/14/2014 03:11 PM, Dimitre Novatchev wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> one vote for overlap.  It seems the most obvious and (to me)
>>>>>> unconfusing
>>>>>> choice.
>>>>>> Only people whose brains have been contaminated with *other markup
>>>>>> paradigms*
>>>>>> will be confused, and those have nothing to do with XML, do they :)
>>>>>
>>>>> My brain is not contaminated -- at least not with "other markup
>>>>> paradigms".
>>>>>
>>>>> Overlapping means this:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>                     -----------------------------------
>>>>> ---------------|---------------                      |
>>>>> |                 |                  |                     |
>>>>> |                 |                  |                     |
>>>>> ---------------|---------------                      |
>>>>>                     -----------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> But what "overlapping"  is currently being used to label is this --
>>>>> this is called "nested"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>                     --------------------------------------
>>>>>                     |     ---------------                      |
>>>>>                     |     |                 |                     |
>>>>>                     |     |                 |                     |
>>>>>                     |     ---------------                      |
>>>>>                     --------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> Not only I find this very confusing.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Michael Sokolov
>>>>> <msokolov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> one vote for overlap.  It seems the most obvious and (to me)
>>>>>> unconfusing
>>>>>> choice.  Only people whose brains have been contaminated with *other
>>>>>> markup
>>>>>> paradigms* will be confused, and those have nothing to do with XML,
>>>>>> do
>>>>>> they
>>>>>> :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -Mike
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 01/14/2014 11:44 AM, Dimitre Novatchev wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     What is wrong with "containment"?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What about "joined" and "disjoint"?
>>>>>>> The other precise but not so short names are "directly-related" vs.
>>>>>>> "non-directly related", or maybe "strongly-related".
>>>>>>> Also: "disparate" vs. "contained"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 7:24 AM, Wendell Piez
>>>>>>> <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 9:50 AM, Dimitre Novatchev
>>>>>>>> <dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 4:26 AM, Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I mean that within the set of nodes selected by //x, there may be
>>>>>>>>>> two
>>>>>>>>>> nodes A and B such that A is an ancestor of B.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> (I'm not using the term overlap in the sense of non-hierarchic
>>>>>>>>>> markup:
>>>>>>>>>> perhaps that's the cause of any confusion).
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Yes that is a big source of confusion. "Overlap" in its general
>>>>>>>>> sense
>>>>>>>>> means that their isn't proper containment -- just intersection.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> And this is not the case here at all.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It would be precise and clear to replace the term "overlapping"
>>>>>>>>> with
>>>>>>>>> something like "containment".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yes, this is hard because English appears not to have a verb that
>>>>>>>> indicates a reciprocal ancestor/descendant relation. Ancestor nodes
>>>>>>>> may contain, include or "dominate" descendant nodes, but since the
>>>>>>>> graph is acyclic, nodes never contain each other.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> One could say more simply "a 'crawling' expression -- one that
>>>>>>>> selects
>>>>>>>> both ancestors and their descendants together". But that doesn't
>>>>>>>> solve
>>>>>>>> the problem for the spec, as in "For example, an implementation
>>>>>>>> might
>>>>>>>> be able to treat the expression .//title as striding rather than
>>>>>>>> crawling if it can establish from knowledge of the schema that two
>>>>>>>> title elements will never overlap" [18.1.1]. I suppose that could
>>>>>>>> be
>>>>>>>> rewritten too ... "no title element will contain another". Or "will
>>>>>>>> never coincide".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Does the spec need a term to indicate this relation in the general
>>>>>>>> case? I agree that the term "overlap" is fraught with other senses,
>>>>>>>> and should probably be avoided.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Cheers, Wendell
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Wendell Piez | http://www.wendellpiez.com
>>>>>>>> XML | XSLT | electronic publishing
>>>>>>>> Eat Your Vegetables
>>>>>>>> _____oo_________o_o___ooooo____ooooooo_^
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Dimitre Novatchev
> ---------------------------------------
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