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RE: Behavior of document() Function with Empty String

Subject: RE: Behavior of document() Function with Empty String
From: "Michael Kay" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:12:35 -0000
RE:  Behavior of document() Function with Empty String
> The document() function is a source of never-ending confusion 
> for me.  As I understand it, the document() function should 
> return the root node of the "current" stylesheet (the one 
> which invoked the function).

document('') resolves the relative URI '' against the base URI of the
element in the stylesheet that contains the XPath expression in which the
call to document('') appears. Provided that the stylesheet module is loaded
from a location whose URI is known, that you don't use xml:base, and that
you don't use XML external entities, XInclude, or other such means of
constructing stylesheets, this will normally refer to the stylesheet module
containing the call on document('').

It's true that RFC 2396 defines special treatment for the relative URI "".
See G.4:

   RFC 1808 (Section 4) defined an empty URL reference (a reference
   containing nothing aside from the fragment identifier) as being a
   reference to the base URL.  Unfortunately, that definition could be
   interpreted, upon selection of such a reference, as a new retrieval
   action on that resource.  Since the normal intent of such references
   is for the user agent to change its view of the current document to
   the beginning of the specified fragment within that document, not to
   make an additional request of the resource, a description of how to
   correctly interpret an empty reference has been added in Section 4.

This material is rewritten in RFC 3986 to make it less browser-oriented. The
vaguely-defined concept of "current document" has been removed; instead
certain relative URIs (including "") are classified as "same-document
references" (section 4.4). The URI is resolved against the base URI in the
normal way, and is considered a same-document reference if the result is
identical to the base URI excepting any fragment identifier; section 4.4
then contains the rule that when a same-document URI is dereferenced, the
dereference should not result in a new retrieval action. I don't think there
has been any discussion of whether this change in the RFCs affects the
treatment of document("") in XSLT. In Saxon, certainly, document("") *does*
result in a new retrieval action, because the document representing the
stylesheet module is not otherwise available at run-time.

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

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