string manipulation

[Michael Kay]

> >> Unfortunatley, the predicate "[1 to last() - 1]" will not 
> work
> 
> The Mark Logic XQuery engine implements the May 2003 Working Draft of 
> XQuery, and a lot has changed since then. The expression we 
> are talking 
> about is one of the things that has changed - the other 
> XQuery engines 
> you talk about seem to be specification complient in this respect.
> 

Actually, I think the last draft that attached this meaning to the syntax
seq[N to M] was the June 2001 draft [1], and it wasn't even specified there,
it was just used for illustration in a single example. So any product that
implements this is rather a long way behind the specs.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-xquery-20010607/

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/