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[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: XML Root Element
 The term "root" or "root element" was widely used in SGML/XML for the outermost element. (Including in the XML Recommendation [2.1].) But when XPath was designed, a notional "root" was introduced that contains all elements, including this one (plus any top-level comments and PIs, which would have no parent in a tree whose root is the document element). Hence XSLT makes the distinction between the "root" of its kind of XML document tree (which is a node, but not an element) and the "document element", which is the only element child of the root in a well-formed XML document (and hence can be dependably reached by the XPath "/*"). In the XSLT context it's good practice to avoid confusion by using the terms "document element" and "root" (or "root node"), but not "root element". Even though the rest of XML does, or used to.... Regards, Wendell At 05:13 PM 3/4/2005, Mike wrote: The top of the tree is a root node (1.0 terminology) or document node (2.0). This is what "/" refers to. It's not an element: it's the parent of the outermost element (and any comments and processing instructions that precede or follow the outermost element). The root node has no name. ====================================================================== Wendell Piez mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Mulberry Technologies, Inc. http://www.mulberrytech.com 17 West Jefferson Street Direct Phone: 301/315-9635 Suite 207 Phone: 301/315-9631 Rockville, MD 20850 Fax: 301/315-8285 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML ====================================================================== 
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