Re: [xsl] Usage of Asterisk in XPath expressions

["Martin Honnen martin.honnen@xxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 22.03.2019 13:43, Martin Honnen martin.honnen@xxxxxx wrote:
> On 22.03.2019 12:01, Philipp Nanz philipp.nanz@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > Suppose this data:
> >
> > <foo:bar xmlns:foo="http://test/ns/foo"; a="b">Yadda</foo:bar>
> >
> > Then suppose this stylesheet:
> >
> > <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
> > B B B B  xmlns:foo="http://test/ns/foo";
> > B B B B  version="2.0">
> >
> > B B B B  <xsl:template match="foo:bar">
> > B B B B B B B B  <xsl:if test="ancestor-or-self::foo*[@a]">
>
> This is
>  B  ancestor-or-self::foo * [@a]
> that is ancestor-or-self::foo multiplied with the array [@a], i.e. the
> array constructed with the attribute "a", I think.
>
> Not sure what the multiplication with an array should result into, need
> to scan the XPath 3.1 spec in some detail.


The multiplication operator atomizes its operand and atomization of an
array gives a sequence of each item in the array atomized.

However, the other main reason that doesn't raise an error is that
ancestor-or-self::foo evaluates to the empty sequence in the context of
that document and that way the multiplication also evaluates to the
empty sequence.