The result of the serialize() function is a string (a sequence of characters)
but the Serialization spec defines a process whose output is a sequence of
octets, that is characters in a particular encoding.
To handle this difference, the spec suggests two possible approaches: either
skip the final stage of serialization, which turns characters into octets, or
reverse it, by turning the octets into characters. This is possible because
character encoding (turning characters into octets) is entirely lossless and
therefore reversible. The first approach (skipping the encoding phase) is of
course more efficient, but it might not be possible if the serializer is a
black-box component that doesn't support this mode of operation.
Michael Kay
Saxonica
On 1 Jun 2014, at 19:46, Dimitre Novatchev dnovatchev(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com
<xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:
I am reading the definition of the serialize function() in the XPath
and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.0 specification,
http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions-30/#func-serialize
Having read several times this text, I feel confused:
"The final stage of serialization, that is, encoding, is skipped. If
the serializer does not allow this phase to be skipped, then the
sequence of octets returned by the serializer is decoded into a string
by reversing the character encoding performed in the final stage."
If, on one hand "The final stage of serialization, that is, encoding,
is skipped", then how is it possible to do "reversing the character
encoding performed in the final stage" ?
And what could possibly be a "string with reversed character encoding"?
I am deeply confused.
Could someone, please, explain this text?
--
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
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