RE: ORA-FO-EMPTY-RETURN 2.3 fn:string

Steve:

Thank you for your comment.  This was discussed by the WGs on 9/15/2003
and it was decided that string functions

should interpret the empty sequence as the empty string.  As a
consequence, none of the string functions return the empty sequence.

All the best, Ashok 

________________________________

From: public-qt-comments-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-qt-comments-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Buxton
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 7:42 AM
To: public-qt-comments@w3.org
Subject: ORA-FO-EMPTY-RETURN 2.3 fn:string

 

Functions and Operators, Section 2.3 
Inconsistencies in function return values. 

When the input to a function is "empty" or "missing", some functions
return the empty sequence, some functions return false, some return the
empty string - and the rationale seems arbitrary. 

Example: fn:string returns a xs:string if the input is the empty
sequence. So does fn:namespace-uri. But fn:base-uri returns the empty
sequence, rather than an empty string, if the node doesn't define a
base-uri.