Re: Evaluation function

The function is xdmp:eval() in the Mark Logic engine.  "xdmp" is one of 
the namespaces used for server-specific functions.  Like Michael says, 
there's no standard eval function but it's hard to do some things 
without it.

(It's nice having the Mark Logic engine freely available now because I 
can answer questions like this.  If you want to experiment with the ML 
engine, it's http://xqzone.marklogic.com.)

-jh-

Michael Kay wrote:

> There is no standard function to do this.
>  
> A number of XSLT processors (Saxon was the first) have provided an 
> evaluate() function to fill this gap - there is a semi-standardized 
> specification at www.exslt.org <http://www.exslt.org>. Unfortunately 
> Saxon's version, saxon:evaluate() is not currently available via the 
> XQuery interface, only via XSLT. I don't think there's a good technical 
> reason for this restriction, it's mainly a question of testing.
>  
> One or two of us did push quite hard for a standard evaluate() function, 
> but the WG decided against. The main arguments, if I recall, were (a) 
> that it broke type safety, (b) that some processors use a compilation 
> architecture in which the parser isn't available at run-time, and (c) 
> that it's not obvious how much of the static/dynamic context should be 
> available to the evaluated expression.
>  
> (At least you understand what it is that you're asking for! A lot of 
> XSLT users have stumbled into this without knowing what they are doing, 
> they try to write things like a[$x] where $x is the string "@foo='bar'" 
> I think the problem is that the use of $ to introduce variables is 
> associated in some people's minds with macro languages).
>  
> Michael Kay
> 
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *From:* www-ql-request@w3.org [mailto:www-ql-request@w3.org] *On
>     Behalf Of *Stéphane Mbaye
>     *Sent:* 22 July 2004 23:48
>     *To:* XQuery
>     *Subject:* Evaluation function
> 
>     Dear all,
> 
>      
> 
>     how to evaluate a string as an Expr or ExprSignle expression from
>     the body of a query script ? As en example is may be useful in the
>     following script:
> 
>      
> 
>     declare variable $query as xs:string external;
> 
>     fn:evaluate($query)
> 
>      
> 
>     Thank you in advance.
> 
>     Stephane Mbaye
> 
>      
> 
>     GAEL Consultant
>

Received on Thursday, 22 July 2004 21:22:58 UTC