Re: [xsl] Context inside brackets

["John Lumley john@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 21/05/2015 11:46, Jorge . chocolate.camera@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> <xsl:variable name="POSITION" select="position()" as="xs:integer"/>
> <xsl:sequence select="$FOO[$POSITION]"/>
>
> but I somehow feel that there must be a way to call the `position()`
> of the current node from inside those brackets

Interestingly my immediate reaction, "$FOO[current()/position()]" isn't 
right. current() does indeed give the XSLT context item, but as a 
sequence of item(), i.e. a singleton sequence, so it has a position of 1 
within the scope of the /.

Thus the top-level XPath expression position() = current()/position(), 
within some XSLT iteration is not (usually) true.

Michael Kay states "in practice it's very rare to write an expression on 
the right-hand side of <</>> that depends upon the context position or 
size" on p 603 of the 4th Edition of his XSLT2.0 Programmer's Reference.

In years of working with XSLT I hadn't looked at this issue in any 
detail. When something didn't work as anticipate either I used the XSLT 
variable binding or in XSLT 3 use a local let, as Martin Honnen 
suggested. ;-)

--
*John Lumley* MA PhD CEng FIEE
john@xxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:john@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
on behalf of Saxonica Ltd