RE: [xsl] combining multiple documents

Subject: RE: [xsl] combining multiple documents
From: "Michael Kay" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:13:56 -0000
Actually a key is a mapping from (V, R) pairs to nodes, where V is a value
and R is a root node.

You're looking for a concept of "the current set of input documents", and
that concept simply doesn't exist in XSLT. XSLT operates in the open world
of the web, not in a closed world. You have to define the set of documents
that you are interested in. That's a feature, not a bug.

It's only context-sensitive in that there is a default for R, and it's only
counter-intuitive because your intuition was wrong. If the function depended
on some notion of "the current set of input documents", then it would be far
more context-sensitive than it is now.

Anyway, this list can offer you constructive help in using the language as
it is defined. It can't change the language for you.

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith [mailto:steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 28 January 2008 09:58
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [xsl] combining multiple documents
> 
> 
> Actually, they are not. They appear to be global mappings 
> from nodes to values. If they were global mappings from 
> values to nodes then we would have exactly what I want. The 
> problem is that the names in these mappings have what appears 
> to me to be both a counter intuitive and an unnecessary 
> context sensitivity (since a key reference returns a value 
> that does not rely upon the matching criteria but upon an 
> implied context.
> 
> With respect,
> Steven
> 
> 
> On Jan 28, 2008, at 1:28 AM, David Carlisle wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> >> I really should have said "partial order" here rather than 
> >> "sequentiality" because this entire question has to do with the 
> >> partial order established by both the functional nature of XSL and 
> >> the strict lexical order of XML documents.
> >
> >
> > Neither of those features though have any bearing on the way keys
> > are defined, which are global mappings from values to nodes.
> >
> > David
> >
> > 
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