Global variables in XQuery

[Michael Kay]

> The easiest way is probably to simply use fn:trace(), the 
> built-in debugging function. Extensions functions with 
> side-effects are not much of an improvement over something 
> like saxon:assign in my opinion.

The improvement is that it's far more visible to the user that they're in
unsupported territory.

fn:trace() doesn't explicitly give you a counter, though I guess with a
custom tracelistener you could make it work that way. But that's not very
different from an extension function either.

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