Re: FW: DN-FO-09: 15.1.11 fn:distinct-values

> We have clarified the text to indicate that order of the output sequence if
> implementation dependent.  We have also changed the wording of the example
> as you suggested.

Thank you.

> 
> If the user wants the output in a particular order, he can sort the values
> by document order by using $x/. or in any other order by using the order-by
> clause.
> 
> Please let us know if this is satisfactory.

Document order is defined for nodes. We may want to preserve the *sequence order*
between the distinct elements that would be returned. 

The example I gave before:

I have the following sequence of random numbers:

3, 5, 2, 8, 6, 4, 9, 7, 1, 5, 2, 10, 9, 3

I want to get only the (first occuring) distinct numbers with their ordering
preserved:

3, 5, 2, 8, 6, 4, 9, 7, 1, 10

This could be possible if the distinct-values() function was defined with an
additional argument "preserve-order" (possibly with default value of false).


fn:distinct-values($srcval as xs:anyAtomicType*,
                   $preserve-order as xs:boolean? ) as xs:anyAtomicType*


Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev.



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Received on Friday, 25 July 2003 17:34:07 UTC