RE: (Possible) pitfall: XSLT 2, 9.4 Creating implicit

You can give assign a type to v1 (and v2 as well) to make both variables
behave the same. Notice, however, that the value of select in
apply-templates was changed as well (this time, both variables hold a
sequence, not a temporary tree). 

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:variable name="v1" as="item()*">
      <xsl:sequence select="a"/>
    </xsl:variable>
    <xsl:variable name="v2" as="item()*" select="a"/>


    <xsl:text>v1: </xsl:text>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="$v1" mode="out"/>
    <xsl:text>&#xa;</xsl:text>

    <xsl:text>v2: </xsl:text>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="$v2" mode="out"/>
  </xsl:template> 

You can choose the type of the variables to be item(), element(), item()* or
element()*, whichever serves best your needs.
Jakub. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christian Roth [mailto:roth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 5:02 PM
> To: XSL List
> Subject:  (Possible) pitfall: XSLT 2, 9.4 Creating implicit document
nodes
> 
> Hello,
> 
> this is a heads-up for a pitfall (that at least I have fallen into several
times
> now...) with respect to XSLT 2, 9.4 "Creating implicit document nodes":
> 
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt20/#temporary-trees>
> 
> With the source document:
> 
> --src.xml--
> <a>
>   <b/>
> </a>
> -----------
> 
> and this transformation
> 
> --transformation.xsl--
> <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
>   xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
>   exclude-result-prefixes="xs"
>   version="2.0">
> 
>   <xsl:template match="/">
>     <xsl:variable name="v1"><xsl:sequence select="a"/></xsl:variable>
>     <xsl:variable name="v2" select="a"/>
> 
> 
>     <xsl:text>v1: </xsl:text>
>     <xsl:apply-templates select="$v1/a" mode="out"/>
>     <xsl:text>&#xa;</xsl:text>
> 
>     <xsl:text>v2: </xsl:text>
>     <xsl:apply-templates select="$v2/a" mode="out"/>
>   </xsl:template>
> 
> 
>   <xsl:template match="*" mode="out">
>     <xsl:value-of select="name()"/>
>     <xsl:apply-templates mode="#current"/>
>   </xsl:template>
> 
> 
>   <xsl:template match="text()" mode="#all"/> </xsl:stylesheet>
> -----------
> 
> the output is:
> 
> --output--
> v1: ab
> v2:
> ----------
> 
> I understand now why this is so per the spec, although I was puzzled at
first.
> 
> However, I've spent considerable time debugging stylesheets where
> accessing a tunnel variable with $var/elem sometimes yielded nothing (see
> v2 in my example above) until I found that in some places, the variable
was
> defined using <xsl:sequence> (because some complex content construction
> takes place which is either not doable or hardly readable using a single
XPath
> expression), and using a select attribute at other places.
> 
> Is there a technique or pattern I could employ (maybe utilizing the @as
> attribute somehow?) to unify the access to variable contents where I know
> that the sequences are node sequences, regardless of their content
> construction using @select or <xsl:sequence>?
> 
> Thanks,
> Christian