get highest number

[Michael Kay]

> 
> Thank you all,
> as Wolfgang said, I use eXist. If I get you right, Wolfgang, 
> my solution would be to do the max/highest evaluation in my application. 

I doubt that would help. Your application would have to access the attribute
nodes, which would incur the IO cost.
> 
> > 
> > If Gonzberg is using eXist (I remember other posts on the 
> > corresponding lists), I can explain the difference: 
> evaluating //@id is entirely index-based (as John already suspected). 
> Compared to this, 
> > max(//@id) requires access to the actual attribute nodes, which 
> > generates a lot more IO.

Thanks for the info. Obvious, when you think about it. 

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