> In fact, it's the first step in the oft-recommended Muenchian grouping 
> technique. (De-duplicate nodes by grouping criterion, then group by the set 
> of de-duplicated "flag-bearer" nodes.)
> 
> A common way to do this is simply to compare a node's value to other nodes 
> (here it's the value of the node's name that you care about):
> 
> node:definition/*[not(name() = name(preceding-sibling::*))]
> 

Why should this take a long time?  Isn't this the same as

*[not(name() = name(preceding-sibling::*[last()]))]

David

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