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Re: accessing last element of node set passed as parameter




     produce identical output given the input:
      <IN><A/><A/><A/><A/><A/><A/></IN>

   Below is a transform in which the two lines:

    <xsl:copy-of select="($result/BAR)[last()]" />
    <xsl:copy-of select="$result[last()]" />


 "$result|xalan:nodeset($new)"/>

Ha! I guessed two possible meanings:



> But they can not have done. If $result holds a root node then
> $result/BAR
> selects all the BAR children of that node and
> ($result/BAR)[last()]
> selects the last of those children.
> 
> But if $result contains three BAR nodes then
> 
> $result/BAR
> 
> selects all the BAR children of each element of $result, and that is
> empty so ($result/BAR)[last()] is similarly empty.
> 
>  

But in fact you have a third.

$result in this case contains three _root_ nodes so $result does have
three nodes, so <xsl:copy-of select="($result/BAR)[last()]" does pick
out the last. But they are root nodes not BAR nodes so
"($result/BAR)[last()]" gives you the last BAR.
Since copy-of throws away root nodes and just gives you thier contents,
you do get the same.

Note however that it is undefined which one you get, you are taking the
union of a new root node with a set of existing root nodes. Root nodes
are in an implementation defined order so you can not be sure that the
last one you added is the one you get with last().

If the order matters you need to make sure your bar elements are
siblings of each other, then the result variable will have a single root
node containing the elements that you are interested in.

David

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