Re: The evaluate function

>> Actually, I'd be surprised if the list archive contains a single real-world
>> example which can't be solved without evaluate() and isn't also an example
>> of bad design. The ones I remember included reading XPath expressions from
>> XML files, which could have been avoided by "XML-ifying" the expression.

If your input document is (say) an XML schema, or an XSL stylesheet it
will contain XPaths in attribute content. How can you "XML-ify" those
without invalidating the documents?

Maybe you would argue that Xpath should have been like XqueryX a fully
expanded XML tree representation of the path, perhaps so, but Xpath is
what it is, so it probably ought to be able to handle itself.


> BTW, if I'm not mistaken, it's the lack of a standard "evaluate" function
> that forces systems like Schematron into being two-pass (generate and
> execute).

Ah that would require an XSLT-evaluate rather than an Xpath one, I don't
think anyone has suggested that (yet) It would be nice though: you
generate two rtfs by applying templates, then you say

<xsl:apply-transformation stylesheet="$x" source="$y"/>

hmm.....

David

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