Re: [xsl] deep-equal behaves differently when node is stored in a variable

["Wolfhart Totschnig wolfhart.totschnig@xxxxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you very much, Martin and Michael! I was not aware of the 
differences you point out.
W.


On 4/15/25 18:13, Michael Kay michaelkay90@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Or if you really want to variable to contain a copy of the node, rather than the original, then in place of xsl:sequence you could do
>
> <xsl:variable name="person" as="node()">
>    <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
> </xsl:variable>
>
> But I find it hard to think of a good reason for making a copy: people often use xsl:copy-of unnecessarily when xsl:sequence is more direct.
>
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
>
> > On 15 Apr 2025, at 22:15, Martin Honnen martin.honnen@xxxxxx <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 15/04/2025 23:11, Wolfhart Totschnig wolfhart.totschnig@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > > Dear list,
> > >
> > > I would like to ask for your help with the following puzzling behavior that I have encountered. The situation is that I am testing whether the context node, which is a <person> element with child elements (first?, middle?, last), is deep-equal to one of a set of other nodes. I found the following solution:
> > >
> > > some $p in //person satisfies deep-equal($p, .)
> > >
> > > However, when I store the context node in a variable, like so:
> > >
> > > <xsl:variable name="person">
> > > \xA0\xA0 <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
> > > </xsl:variable>
> >
> > That creates a document node containing a copy of the context node, so you either need
> >
> >    <xsl:variable name="person" select="."/>
> >
> > or, if you, for reasons I don't see, want to use the inner selection, use
> >
> >    <xsl:variable name="person" as="node()">
> >
> >       <xsl:sequence select="."/>
> >
> >    </xsl:variable>
> >
> > > and then make the comparison with the variable, like so:
> > >
> > > some $p in //person satisfies deep-equal($p, $person)
> > >
> > > then the test comes out false. Why is that? Why does it make a difference whether I store the context node in a variable or call it directly?
> > A document node is not deep-equal to an element node.