- From: Max Froumentin <mf@w3.org>
- Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 17:01:19 +0200
- To: Geoff Mottram <gmottram@minaretsoftware.com>
- Cc: www-xpath-comments@w3.org
From the definition of "document order" [1], a node's ancestor nodes
are before it, and a node's descendent nodes are after it. Therefore
it wouldn't make sense to talk of the "following axis excluding a
node's ancestors" but it does make sense to exclude a node's
descendent in the following axis.
Take the following example: <a><b/><c><d/></c><e/></a>
a
/ | \
b c e
|
d
if c is the context node,
following:: axis contains all nodes after c in document order (d and
e), excluding descendents (d): e
preceding:: axis contains all nodes before c in document order (a and
b), excluding ancestors (a): b
descendents:: are d
ancestors:: are a
self:: is c
All axes indeed partition the document.
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath.html#dt-document-order
Max.
You wrote:
> The bullets for "following axis", "preceding axis" and the "Note" under
> "ancestor-or-self axis" are in conflict. I believe the mistake is in the
> "following axis" bullet. Shouldn't the statement "excluding any
> descendants" be replace with "excluding any ancestors"? Otherwise, the
> "Note" under "ancestor-or-self axis" that states "The ancestor,
> descendant, following, preceding and self axes ... together they contain
> all the nodes in the document." can not be true unless both the
> following axis and previous axis include their decedents.
Received on Saturday, 20 October 2001 11:01:28 UTC