Context of an XPath expression

• From: Kay Michael <Michael.Kay@icl.com>
• Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 11:32:49 +0100
• To: "'www-xpath-comments@w3.org'" <www-xpath-comments@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <93CB64052F94D211BC5D0010A800133170F061@wwmess3.bra01.icl.co.uk>

The components of the context described in the XPath specification (section
1) are not sufficient to evaluate all XSLT expressions.

1: the XSLT document() function uses another piece of context (the base URL
of the stylesheet node containing the expression)

2: the XSLT current() function uses another piece of context (the current
node in the source document).

3: the XSLT system-property() function depends on a rather nebulous context
called the "operating system".

It would be useful to at least acknowledge that functions outside the core
library may depend on other contextual information.

Also, there is still nothing said about whether non-core functions can have
side effects.

Mike Kay

Received on Tuesday, 24 August 1999 13:04:25 UTC