Re: [F&O] IBM-FO-037: Strange description of fn:unordered

Dimitre,

This is a personal response, and has not been seen, much less approved, by 
the Query WG.

The Query WG is considering some proposed changes to the facilities related 
to "unordered" in XQuery/XPath.  It's too soon to tell precisely what 
outcome will result, but I feel personally confident that the situation 
will not remain as it is.  The results might be more favorable to you than 
the current situation.

Watch this space!
    Jim

At 02:45 PM 3/4/2004 Thursday, Dimitre Novatchev wrote:

> > (IBM-FO-037): Section 15.1.14 (fn:unordered): The summary begins "This
> > function takes a sequence, or more typically, an expression that
> > evaluates to a sequence ...". This implies that a "sequence" is somehow
> > different from "an expression that evaluates to a sequence." Actually
> > there is no difference. The phrase beginning "or more typically" should
> > be deleted.
>
>I commented about the lack of meaning of this definition. If they remove
>the phrase "or more typically, an expression that evaluates to a
>sequence", then this whole function becomes useless to them. Their idea is
>that the argument *must* be an expression, which is not yet evaluated. The
>fact that such an expression is passed as argument to fn:unordered will
>tell the processor (!) that it is allowed not to preserve order and to
>produce an unordered result...
>
>The purely formal problem with this function definition is that there is
>no "expression" data type in the DM, therefore, they can only explain it
>in plain English...
>
>Of course, this is absolutely incorrect!
>
>I propose once again that this function definition be removed from the
>document. All other arguments put aside, the mere failure of the attempt
>to define it correctly is a very strong indicator that this is simply not
>a function.
>
>Dimitre Novatchev.
>
>
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Jim Melton --- Editor of ISO/IEC 9075-* (SQL)     Phone: +1.801.942.0144
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Received on Friday, 5 March 2004 03:36:22 UTC