optional attributes via function?

[Dmitri.Colebatch at toyota.com.au]

hey all,

I'm thinking this isn't possible, but I'll ask anyway, and there might be
another option that I haven't considered.

I have an input document that looks roughly like:

  <SPECS>
    <SPEC>
      <VALIDFROM>20020801</VALIDFROM>
      <VALIDTO>20020815</VALIDTO>
       ...
    </SPEC>
    <SPEC>
      <VALIDFROM>20020816</VALIDFROM>
      <VALIDTO>99991231</VALIDTO>
       ...
    </SPEC>
  </SPECS>

my output needs to look like:

  <widgetspecifications>
    <widgetspecification validFrom="2002-08-01" validTo="2002-08-15">
       ...
    </widgetspecification>    
    <widgetspecification validFrom="2002-08-16">
       ...
    </widgetspecification>    
  </widgetspecifications>

my query (which is really just xslt in xquery's clothing) currently looks
something like:

  <widgetspecifications>
  {
    for $spec in $this//SPEC
    return
    <widgetspecification 
      validFrom="myfn:transformDate($spec/VALIDFROM)" 
      validTo="myfn:transformDate($spec/VALIDTO)">
       ...
    </widgetspecification>          
  }
  </widgetspecifications>

now my problem is that I don't want to include 9999-31-12 as a date
because that date is really saying "this spec is always valid".  my first
attempt (that I didn't expect to work) was to make another custom function
and do something like:

  <widgetspecifications>
  {
    for $spec in $this//SPEC
    return
    <widgetspecification 
      validFrom="myfn:transformDate($spec/VALIDFROM)" 
      myfn:outputValidToIfRequired($spec/VALIDTO)>
       ...
    </widgetspecification>          
  }
  </widgetspecifications>

but of course this failed.... I don't want to put two different cases in
for the 9999 case and the other case because the "..." above is very
large.  Anyone have any suggesitons?

cheers
dim

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