the ancestor:: axis  is (for some inexplicable reason) an optional
feature of Xquery, so you may need to check if your processor supports
it.

The other way is to write a recursive function that goes _down_ skipping
any elements that have ids, rather than using // to get to the bottom
and then looking back up with ancestor::

something like (can't remember the xquery function definition syntax)

 function f ($items)
  for $i in $items[not(@id)]
   return 
     if ($i instance of element() ) f($i/node()) else $i 


which if I got it right says accept a list of items and for all items
that don't have an id, output the item  if its a text node, or recurse
on the children if its an element.

David

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