Re: Evaluation function

There are lots of problems related to how make an eval() function work 
neatly.

In fact, a better solution to those kinds of issues is support for 
higher-order
functions in the language, but this is certainly beyond the scope of 
XQuery 1.0

Best,
- Jerome




Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@datadirect.com> 
Sent by: www-ql-request@w3.org
07/23/2004 11:25 AM

To
Stephane Mbaye <stephane.mbaye@gael.fr>
cc
XQuery <www-ql@w3.org>
Subject
Re: Evaluation function







Yes, for all practical purposes I suspect the debate is closed for 
XQuery 1.0, unles new information is presented. You can try sending a 
comment to our public comments list (public-qt-comments@w3.org), but I 
doubt that you'll get much traction with this.

XQuery is already a fairly large language for a 1.0 standard, and we 
have no requirement for eval() in our requirements or use case for 
eval() in our use cases. Changing the requirements at this stage is not 
a great idea, we should be closing things down to ship instead.

And every 1.0 standard should leave users with something they can want 
in the 2.0 version...

Jonathan

Stephane Mbaye wrote:

> Thank you for your answers.
> 
> It sounds that an evaluating expression is an interesting issue for many
> users and purposes. I understand, however, how complex it could be to
> specify this function, and in particular with regard to the conversion 
of
> the dynamic context to the static evaluation context (e.g. should the
> (sub-)expression declare, as "external", the variables to inherit from 
the
> outer context? Should the current date time be reinitialized? etc.).
> 
> Nevertheless, I am convinced it is not an impossible process and, should 
an
> evaluate() function be specified, it could have very constraining
> specifications. As an example, it may be totally independent from the
> static/dynamic context of the calling query. It may also have
> implementation-defined or implementation- dependent features such as 
many
> other components of the XQuery language.
> 
> My concern is at least to have a standardized/common 
specification/baseline,
> to avoid or minimize the number of different implementations of the same
> thing.
> 
> Is the debate completely closed?