maybe a silly question, but why exactly do you need the ()? something
like //* with a predicate [] should be enough or not?
A predicate in an axis step just filters that step.
//*[position() < 50]
is /descendent-or-self::node/child::*[position() < 50]
so it gives you all element nodes in the document that have fewer than
49 older siblings.
On the other hand
(//*)[position() < 50]
is (/descendent-or-self::node/child::*)[position() < 50]
which gives you the first 49 element nodes in the document.
David
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