Re: Hierarchy problem

> [Showing up my lack of set theory knowledge I can't see the difference in
> this case]

you are a member of the set of all men 
(item being a member of a set)
the set consisting of you is a subset of the set of all men
(singleton set being a subset of a set)

In some sense these have the same meaning but 

> Also, if $y is a node which doesn't exist (or is higher in the doc tree than
> $x) surely the statement would come back true?

higher up the node tree it would be false. empty set it wuld be true
which is part of the difference between "subset" and member of.
if y is the empty set and x is a set then y is a subset of x.
if you want to check that it is a proper subset (ie not empty and not
the whole thing) you need to test for that as well, so 

test="$y and count($x/*|$y) = count($x/*)"

or if you don't want teh sets y an dx to be equal



test="$y and count($x/*|$y) = count($x/*) and not(count($x)=count($y))"

David

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