RE: [xml-dev] The limitations of XPath and navigation- A XPath/XQuery

["Michael Kay" <mike@saxonica.com>]

>SQL business applications using SQL’s natural hierarchical processing are using unambiguous hierarchical structures where each node or data field can be unambiguously referenced.  

 

As a matter of interest, you're using the term "hierarchical processing" a lot, but are you assuming that hierarchies are non-recursive - that is, you can't have the same elements at multiple levels, like sections in a document or parts in a parts explosion? If so, that seems rather limiting, to say the least. I ask, because I don't see how your "unambiguous references" can work in a general hierarchy, where recursion is allowed.

 

Michael Kay

http://www.saxonica.com/