Michael Kay wrote:

>>i know its late in the day re XSLT / XPATH 2.0 drafts,
>>
>>but doesnt this scenario sort of 'scream out' for a boolean function
>>that tests for type, both basic (node, string, number) and schema ?
>>
>>    
>>
>
>There is such a construct: e.g. ($x instance of xs:decimal)
>
>  
>
what does this mean in a basic conforming XSLT processor (of which none
exists yet...) we can test for element() but what about string() or
number()....

>But in this case, I interpreted the requirement as being not to test whether
>the attribute had a numeric type (ie. was defined as a number in the
>schema), but whether its value had the lexical form of a number. 
>
yes agreed there are nuances here

>The XPath
>2.0 construct for this is ($x castable as xs:decimal).
>  
>
I think the idea of a simple isnumber(), iselement(), isstring() for
basic processor and for schema aware a istype(xs:decimal,$x) is more of
what I am talking about..which of course I can write using xsl:function.

thx, Jim


>Michael Kay
>http://www.saxonica.com/