RE: What is exciting in XSLT 2.0 (Was: Re: para

> Yes, I know this, and use them quite a bit in my stylesheets.  I was 
> referring to the higher-order functions that Dmitre is 
> interested in.  
> The FXSL docs assume a fairly specific audience that is not me.

Consider two important bits of functionality that are present in XSLT 2.0
but not in XQuery 1.0: analyze-string and for-each-group. These needed
custom syntax in XSLT 2.0: they couldn't be implemented as standard
functions, because they are higher-order - they take functions (or
instructions) as their arguments. It's difficult to define custom syntax in
XQuery, which is why these facilities were omitted. But with higher-order
functions, you can implement these facilities without any new syntax, and
indeed I have done so for the benefit of XQuery users: see

http://www.saxonica.com/documentation/extensions/functions/analyze-string.ht
ml

http://www.saxonica.com/documentation/extensions/functions/for-each-group.ht
ml

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