Re: [xsl] Sibling axis and as="element()"

["andrew welch" <andrew.j.welch@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 7/31/06, David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >  how do you go about making it explicit
> if you want it really explict you could use
>
> <xsl:variable as="document-node()">
>   <xsl:document>
>     ... stuff
>
>
> but note that the main (perhaps) difference between
>
> <xsl:variable name="x">
>   <xsl:sequence select="foo"/>
> </xsl:sequence>
>
> and
>
> <xsl:variable name="x" as="element()*">
>   <xsl:sequence select="foo"/>
> </xsl:sequence>
>
> isn't so much the implict document node as the implict copying. in the
> second case $x references foo nodes in their original trees, whereas in
> the first case, the nodes are _copied_ into the temporary tree so it's
> the same as if you had used copy-of rather than sequence, so you get new
> nodes with new identities, and unless MK is kindly optimising stuff
> away, new memory usage.

Thanks, that makes sense (...I think :-)

In this case:

<xsl:variable name="foo" as="document-node()">
	<xsl:document>
		<foo/>
		<foo/>
		<foo/>
	</xsl:document>
</xsl:variable>

There is a document node and three child elements, that are siblings
of one another but that do not have a common parent?  How come in this
case there doesn't have to be a single root node?