[DM] stable order

Hello,

section 3.2 Document Order of the XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model
uses the term "stable" to characterize orders.
I do not find any definition in this document what a stable order is.

Do you mean, if two nodes A and B whose order is implementation-dependent
are in some concrete order then this order doesn't change within this
model (for the lifetime of this instance; never)?
Does it have to be the same order between two invocations of an implementation?

Moreover, regarding distinct documents, the specification says

   "The relative order of nodes in distinct documents is 
   implementation-dependent but stable. In other words, given two 
   distinct documents A and B, if a node in document A is before a 
   node in document B, then every node in document A is before every 
   node in document B."

That sounds as if the second sentence ("In other words, ...") is a
conclusion or an explanation of the term "stable order", but I can't 
apply this meaning to attribute or namespace nodes.

I believe this section needs a clarification.

Regards,
Oliver Becker


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|  ob|do        Dipl.Inf. Oliver Becker                             |
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Received on Tuesday, 24 June 2003 11:20:51 UTC