Mike, could you expand on this comment:
  If a variable $v references such a node,
  then when the node is added to a document, the value of
  count($v/ancestor::*) is going to change.

I don't understand.
You can't add a node to a document (can you?) only copy it.
If you're building a document and copy $v into the current tree the
ancestors of the new node will depend on where it's copied, but that is
true in any case, whether or not $v is rootless, so you must have
something else in mind??


   .... My worries may be misplaced (the data model suggests that when a
   node is added to a tree, 

ah maybe you already answered my question, but I'd still be interested
to know what adding a node to a tree would mean (is this perhaps related
to the xquery update question?

David



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