RE: [xsl] Sequences in XSLT 2.0..

Subject: RE: [xsl] Sequences in XSLT 2.0..
From: "Michael Kay" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:16:21 -0000
> although perhaps they might have been better
> >still if they had allowed sequences of sequences)
> 

>I guess they decided to do just one thing at a time....

There has been a proposal to add sequences of sequences, and it was
rejected. It's always hard to summarize why a particular decision was taken,
but it's probably fair to say that some people felt it was a bad idea
intrinsically and others felt that the time was not right.

There are many interesting things you could do with sequences of sequences.
It might come up in future as part of an XQuery solution to grouping
problems. If you think about it, xsl:sort allowed you to process things in
sorted order, and sequences allow you to save things in sorted order.
Similarly, xsl:for-each-group allows you to process things in groups, and
sequences of sequences would allow you to save things in groups. However,
there's also a feeling that you'd then have two completely separate ways of
building trees: the XML way, and the "sequences of sequences" way, and that
this might be somewhat redundant.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/

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