Question on expected XQuery return per standards

[Michael Kay]

> >> But it isn't. The standard is very clear that $xml//p expands to 
> >> $xml/descendant-or-self::node()/p. The ordering is also very clear:
> 
> Just to add: I observed that this rule regularly causes 
> irritations when teaching XPath/XQuery, as many users assume 
> that the two slashes can be dissolved to a single descendant 
> step, which actually works fine - as long as no position 
> predicates are involved.

And so long as the step that follows "//" uses the child axis.

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