[F&O] avg()

The definition of avg() contains some statements that are contradictory
and others that are unclear (at least to me).  For example,

(0)
"$srcval must contain items of a single type or one if its subtypes."

Followed by a description of (for example) how to promote xdt:untypedAtomic
into double.  Clearly avg(xs:double(1.0), xs:untypedAtomic(2.0)) is valid,
but the quoted sentence above would rule it out.

(1)
"In addition, the type must support addition and division by an integer.
If date/time values do not have a timezone, the implicit timezone provided
by the evaluation context is added and the adjusted normalized value is
used in the calculation."

I see several problems with these two sentences:
  (a) xs:date and xs:time do not support addition (with themselves), but
the second sentence implies sequences of dates and times are allowed.
Is avg((xs:time('01:01:01'), xs:time('03:03:03'))) allowed?
What about avg(xs:time('01:01:01'))?

  (b) What about avg(xs:date('1972-05-13'), xs:yearMonthDuration('P31Y'))?
These two support addition (with each other) and division by an integer.

(2)
Are the typing rules described here applied to the static or runtime types
of the arguments?
For example, is the expression
avg((if ($someRuntimeCondition) then xdt:yearMonthDuration('P1Y') else
xdt:dayTimeDuration('PT1H'),
     if ($someOtherRuntimeCondition) then xdt:yearMonthDuration('P3Y') else
xdt:dayTimeDuration('PT3H')))
always a static type error, or will it succeed when
$someRuntimeCondition=$someOtherRuntimeCondition and fail otherwise.


These confusions could be avoided if there were separate average functions:
one for the numeric types (backwards compatible with XPath 1.0,
non-numeric items in the sequence are promoted to a numeric type);
another function (or set of functions) for date/time/dateTime/
dayTimeDuration/yearMonthDuration values, say
  avg-date(xs:date*) as xs:date?
  avg-yearMonthDuration(xdt:yearMonthDuration*) as xdt:yearMonthDuration?
etc.


Best wishes,

Michael Brundage
Writing as
Author, "XQuery: The XML Query Language" (Addison-Wesley, to appear 2003)
Co-author, "Professional XML Databases" (Wrox Press, 2000)

not as
Technical Lead
Common Query Runtime/XML Query Processing
WebData XML Team
Microsoft

Received on Saturday, 17 May 2003 16:10:35 UTC