• To: "'Roger L. Costello'" <costello@m...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: A parentless element that is not the document node - how?
• From: "Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@n...>
• Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 19:36:03 +0100
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <3F2E5174.25855B84@m...>
• Reply-to: <michael.h.kay@n...>

> 
> The XSLT 2.0 spec talks about "parentless elements".  As far 
> as I know, there can only be one element in a source document 
> that is parentless - the document node.  Yet, the XSLT 2.0 
> spec seems to suggest that there may be other parentless 
> element nodes.  Can someone tell me what they may be?  

As David Carlisle explained, they are nodes that are not part of any
document.

For example, you can create a set of three parentless attribute nodes
as:

<xsl:variable name="trio" as="attribute()*">
  <xsl:attribute name="colour">red</xsl:attribute>
  <xsl:attribute name="size">big</xsl:attribute>
  <xsl:attribute name="mood">happy</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:attribute>

and you can then attach this to an element using:

<e>
 <xsl:copy-of select="$trio"/>
</e>

and of course you can do the same with element nodes rather than
attributes.

Michael Kay

• References:
  • A parentless element that is not the document node - how?
    • From: "Roger L. Costello" <costello@m...>

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