Re: [xsl] What do we have in variable?

Subject: Re: [xsl] What do we have in variable?
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 15:21:33 -0400
Roman,

At 03:11 PM 5/9/2002, you wrote:
I'm just trying to understand, whenever we initialize some variable for
example in that way <xsl:variable name="somevar" select="ancestor::*"/>
what do we have stored inside it? Is it an array or some root node?

It's not an array: there is no such thing in the data model. Nor is it a root node: it's a node set.


What node set it is, exactly, depends on the context node, which is to say the node from which the ancestory axis, in this case, is traversed; this will depend on where the variable declaration occurs (inside which template or instruction, etc.). The dependence of the node set returned by an XPath location path on the context in which that location path is invoked is one of the important subtleties of XPath commonly missed by newcomers to the language.

Cheers,
Wendell


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