[xsl] Multiple root nodes in a node-set

[Elliotte Harold <elharo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Is there anything in the XPath 1.0 data model which prohibits a node-set 
from containing more than a single root node? For instance, could a 
node-set be imagined which contains document nodes for two or three 
documents?

I don't think you can construct such a thing using either XPath or XSLT 
1.0. However, in other environments, it might be feasible.

In particular, this is relevant to XML canonicalization which can 
operate on node-sets as well as complete documents. If it's legal for a 
node-set to contain multiple roots, then I need to make sure my 
canonicalizer handles the case of multiple roots. If it's not, then I 
need to make it throw an exception.

Right now my suspicion is that this is legal, but I'd love it if someone 
could point me to the section of the XPath spec that proves me wrong.

--
Elliotte Rusty Harold


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