[Bug 1319] definition of a XSLT processor

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=1319


mike@saxonica.com changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |FIXED




------- Additional Comments From mike@saxonica.com  2005-07-28 18:53 -------
Your comment led the working group to a re-examination of the exact details of
what an XSLT processor does under various circumstances, which continued over a
number of meetings. We have now established that:

(a) there is always at least one result tree. 

(b) an implicit result tree is created if either of the following conditions is
true: (i) the result of evaluating the initial template is a non-empty sequence,
or (ii) no xsl:result-document instruction has been evaluated. 

If neither of these conditions is true, for example, if the initial template is

<xsl:template match="/">
  <xsl:result-document validation="strict" href="">
    <a/>
  </xsl:result-document>
</xsl:template>

then no implicit result tree is produced: that is, the transformation produces
one result tree, not two.

(c) if the initial template has an "as" attribute, the type checking is applied
to the sequence produced by the initial template *before* wrapping this result
in a document node (the current text would imply that it is wrapped before type
checking).

The Working Group also discussed whether there might be other ways of invoking a
stylesheet, for example by allowing applications to make direct calls to
functions defined using <xsl:function>. In this case there would be no result
tree produced, and the result might be, for example, a sequence of three
integers, or a single boolean, or a set of nodes in the source tree. We decided
that there was nothing in the spec to rule out an implementation providing such
a mode of evaluation but that it was outside the scope and definition of an
"XSLT Processor" as described in the specification.

We think we have now bottomed this subject out and thank you for triggering this
review. If you are content with the resolution, please mark the bug as closed.

Received on Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:53:28 UTC