Better way to structure XQuery

[Michael Kay]

XQuery doesn't allow dynamic evaluation of an XPath expression held in a
string. Some products have extensions to do this - but it's not at all clear
that it's a good idea here (it would probably be expensive) - unless there's
something about the requirement that you haven't explained.

Regards,

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk 
> [mailto:http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk] On Behalf Of http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> Sent: 08 July 2009 17:08
> To: http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
> Subject:  Better way to structure XQuery
> 
> I have the following XQuery:
> 
> xquery version="1.0";
> 
> let $mydoc :=doc('http://localhost:8080/exist/rest/db/bio.xml')
> let $profileType := 'Standard'
> let $profileType := if
> ($mydoc/metadata/idinfo/spdom/bounding/boundalt/altmin or
> $mydoc/metadata/idinfo/spdom/bounding/boundalt/altmax) then 
> 'Biological'
> else $profileType
> 
> return 
>    <result>
>       {$profileType>
>    </result>
> 
> This works fine, however, I would like to take the paths and 
> place them in a sequence (there are potentially 30+ I need to 
> check for). I am new to XQuery/XPath and unable to figure out 
> the proper way to do this. 
> 
> Can anyone let me know how to use two variables, one being 
> the $mydoc and one being a string ($path :=
> '/metadata/idinfo/spdom/bounding/boundalt/altmin') and have 
> it evaluate as XPath instead of as a string? 
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