xml-dev - Re: Inserting optional elements

[tpassin@home.com]

I don't see this as being an xpath problem per se.  xpath presumably would
return the third "bar" element without ambiguity.  If you deleted it, it
would be gone.  But what does it mean to "insert" something?  Aye, there's
the rub.  That's why lists often have methods like "insert before" and
"insert after".

A very valid question for a query/update language, though.

Cheers,

Tom Passin

Matthew Gertner wrote -

>
> If I want to add an element with the XPath "foo/bar[3]", then I have no
way
> of knowing whether this will result is bar,bar,bar,baz,bar or
> bar,bar,baz,bar,bar. This is only one of several problems with XPath.
We're
> thinking about extending the standard to solve these problems, so I'd be
> most interested to know if any other individuals, companies or
organizations
> are working on this and want to collaborate. I haven't checked whether the
> W3C is working on this yet (but I will).
>