distance between elements and hierarchical order

[David Carlisle]

    $x-ancestor at $x-ancestor-position in $x/ancestor-or-self::element()

    would $x itself (always) be at position 1, or should it be last?

path expressions always return nodes in document order, so $x is always
last(). (it'll only be in position 1 if it's the top level element)

In the original problem I don't think you need to explictly iterate over
the ancestor lists then use count and min, you just walk up the
ancestors of x which are not ancestors of y , then up one level to the
nearest common ancestor then down the ancestors of y that are not
ancestors of x so the distance is

count($x-ancestors)+count($y-ancestors)+1-2*count($x-ancestors intersect $y-ancestors)

where x-ancestors is as in the posted code the ancestor-or-self:: axis
from $x

David

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