RE: [XPath 2.0] Sequences can never be nested ... but what about function arguments?

Thanks Jim.  I kinda guessed that was the answer - that a function argument
list is not a sequence.

The thing that bothers me is that a function argument list sure looks like a
sequence.  A function argument list is "a list of comma-separated values".
Isn't that how Xpath defines a sequence?  

Are there any other examples in Xpath of a comma-separated list of values
that is not a sequence?

Thanks again Jim.  /Roger


-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Melton [mailto:jim.melton@acm.org] 
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 1:57 PM
To: Roger L. Costello
Cc: public-qt-comments@w3.org; 'Roger L. Costello'
Subject: Re: [XPath 2.0] Sequences can never be nested ... but what about
function arguments?


Roger,

While I regret that XQuery's sequences cannot be nested (and have raised a 
comment on this subject), I don't believe that the situation that you 
observed constitutes an exception to this rule.

At 11:31 AM 6/14/2004 Monday, Roger L. Costello wrote:

>Hi Folks,
>
>In section 3.3 of the XPath spec it says:
>
>"Sequences are never nested-for example, combining the values 1, (2, 3),
and
>( ) into a single sequence results in the sequence (1, 2, 3)."
>
>Aren't the arguments to a function a sequence?  If sequences cannot be
>nested, then the example in 3.1.5 would not be valid:

The answer, in short, is that the arguments to a function are not, in fact, 
a sequence.  It is true that the syntax of function invocation involves a 
comma-separated list of argument values enclosed in parentheses, but that 
is explicitly not syntactically defined to be a sequence.


>"my:two-argument-function((1, 2), 3) denotes a function call with two
>arguments, the first of which is a sequence of two values."

The statement that you quote is precise and accurate (and correct).  The 
function call has two arguments.  It does not have a "sequence of two 
values", one of which is itself another "sequence of two values".  It has 
two arguments.  The first argument is the value that is a sequence of 
values "(1, 2)" and the second argument is the value "3".


>Do we not have a sequence with a nested sequence in this example?

Nope, we do not.


>It would seem that sometimes sequences can be nested (e.g., in function
>calls) and other times sequences cannot be nested.

Not true, since argument lists are (a)not defined syntactically to be a 
sequence and (b)not represented in the data model at all, particularly not 
as a sequence.


>Can someone clarify this please?  /Roger

Hope this helps,
    Jim

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Received on Monday, 14 June 2004 14:14:28 UTC