[XQuery] Inconsistent syntax for variable declarations

• From: Kay, Michael <Michael.Kay@softwareag.com>
• Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:52:21 +0100
• To: <public-qt-comments@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <37B64F4BA60E9E4FB9F60929E05980242877F0@DAEMSG03.eur.ad.sag>

I am raising this comment because I have seen several XQuery users make
mistakes as a result of the syntactic inconsistency between global
variable declarations and local variables, and there seems to be no good
reason why they are so different.

For global variables we write:

   declare variable $x [as xs:integer] {3};

while for local variables we write:

   let $x [as xs:integer] := 3

I suggest changing the global variable syntax to:

   declare variable $x [as xs:integer] := 3;

An external variable would be:

   declare variable $x [as xs:integer] external;

Michael Kay

Received on Friday, 23 January 2004 17:51:57 UTC