Re: Future XSLT expansion.

> But the 'node-sets'  they are returning ( and RTFs also ) 
> are vendor specific.

No. If it returns something of type node-set then it is (or should be)
usable by any xslt function expecting a node-set expression.
If it is returning a vendor-specific datatype (which is allowed as well)
then that should be a variable of type other than node set, and that
variable will only be usable in extension functions that understand the
new datatype.

There is currently no standard API for producing (or using) node-set
expressions from within an extension function, but there is no standard
API for producing extensions at all, so this seems to be a lack of
standard API for extensions rather than a problem with XSLT itself.
Currently you have to follow the API advertised for each system and you
can't in general write an extension function that works cross platform
(in general that probably isn't possible anyway but hopefully the
implementors of at least the java versions will agree a common API and
namespace for extensions) 

> Because node set  *is*  'some private datatype'.
Not according to the spec, it isn't.


David


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list