Re: [xsl] expression syntax

Subject: Re: [xsl] expression syntax
From: "M. David Peterson" <m.david@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 06:12:39 -0800
David Carlisle wrote:

but my reaction has always been that the number function is there for a reason



You don't believe in anachy and accidental development via evolution?:-)


You mean its not true? ;-)

number() forces coersion to numbers at places where it wouldn't happen
automatically. Notably

foo[@bar]

takes foo elements that have a bar attribute

foo[number(@bar)] takes the foo element whose position() is equal to
the numeric value of its bar attribute.


Aaaahhhhh.... Ok, that now makes perfect sense.

test="@foo=1"

is false if the source has foo="1.0"

but

test="number(@foo)=1"

would be true in that case.


again, this brings in to light the purpose of the function... I have a lot of code that needs some clean up to due to implementing a completey pointless function call... Won't bother timing the savings of time during the transformation as I doubt it will be much but having a better understanding of the number() function definitely will help me with a few things here and there that I have struggled with in the past (the dynamic position assignment in particular in most useful!!! Thanks David! :)

Cheers!

<M:D/>


David


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