Re: Processiing arrays in XSLT 4

On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 8:38 AM Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> wrote:

> It seems a no-brainer to provide an XSLT instruction along the lines
>
> <xsl:for-each-member select="array">
>   ....
> </xsl:for-each>
>

I would rather prefer:

<xsl:process-array select="myArray" with="someFunction"/>

or even

myArray ! someFunction

Thanks,
Dimitre


> to process the members of a supplied array.
>
> The question is: within the body of this instruction, how should one refer
> to the current member of the array?
>
> Recall that a member of an array can be any sequence, not just a single
> item.
>
> Here are some ideas I have considered. I'm not 100% happy with any of
> them, and I'd be interested to know what other people think.
>
> With xsl:for-each-group, we bind current-group(), but we also bind the
> context-item (to the first item in the current group) and position() and
> last(). Binding the context item (as well as position and last) seems
> friendly, but the current member of an array might be an empty sequence,
> and it's not clear how to handle that.
>
> Following precedent suggests a current-member() function, but I'm not keen
> on adding yet more current-xyz() functions, and it's not clear how we
> provide current position.
>
> An alternative would be to depart from precedent and bind variables:
>
> <xsl:for-each-member select="array" bind-to="member" position="pos">
>    <xsl:if test="$pos ne 1">,</xsl:if>
>    <xsl:for-each select="$member">
>       ...
>
> That's the way I would do it if it weren't so inconsistent with the way
> other things are done. Also, many arrays in practice have members that are
> single items (or perhaps zero-or-one items), and binding "." in those cases
> seems more intuitive.
>
> Another possibility is to bind "." to a zero-arity function that returns
> the current member: so to access the current member you write select=".()".
> Is that just too weird, or would people get used to it? The attraction is
> that it doesn't involve inventing any new machinery - no new functions, no
> additions to the dynamic context, and position() and last() work nicely.
>
> Related to this is how array construction works. I'm currently proposing
>
> <xsl:array>
>   <xsl:for-each select="1 to 10">
>     <xsl:array-member select=". * 2"/>
>   </xsl:for-each>
> </xsl:array>
>
> To allow this to construct arrays whose members hold multiple items, I'm
> proposing that "under the good", xsl:array-member actually creates a
> zero-arity-function containing the value of the array member, so the
> sequence constructor contained in xsl:array actually returns a sequence of
> zero-arity functions. Using the same device for both instructions has some
> merit.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
>


-- 
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
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