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Re: What do we have in variable?


Roman,

At 03:11 PM 5/9/2002, you wrote:
>I'm just trying to understand, whenever we initialize some variable for
>example in that way <xsl:variable name="somevar" select="ancestor::*"/>
>what do we have stored inside it? Is it an array or some root node?

It's not an array: there is no such thing in the data model. Nor is it a 
root node: it's a node set.

What node set it is, exactly, depends on the context node, which is to say 
the node from which the ancestory axis, in this case, is traversed; this 
will depend on where the variable declaration occurs (inside which template 
or instruction, etc.). The dependence of the node set returned by an XPath 
location path on the context in which that location path is invoked is one 
of the important subtleties of XPath commonly missed by newcomers to the 
language.

Cheers,
Wendell


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@mulberrytech.com
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
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