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Re: [xsl] things about grouping

2012-11-29 15:47:51
On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Michael Kay <mike(_at_)saxonica(_dot_)com> 
wrote:
Why do I have to write for $i in (1 to n) return "$1" instead of (1 to
n)/"$1!

Because there were people on the working group who could not stomach the
idea of having the expression 10/2 return 2.


One could have distinguished the sequence consisting solely of the
number 10 from the number 10 which with the existing syntax would have
gotten you the slightly less objectionable (10)/2.

One could have followed the lead of set theory, {10} is a set, 10 is
an integer,  or the convention of functional programming languages of
using square brackets for lists/sequences. The other aspect of this is
the semantics of the symbol / which is pregnant with meaning from the
mathematical domain - a situation exacerbated by the fact that the
other operands in the expression happen to be numbers.

I have no idea how much mileage one gets from interpreting 10 as a
singleton sequence but it would seem that the tradeoff for doing so
was compositionality and I would have needed to see alot of miles  to
have made that bargain.

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