On 17 Aug 2013, at 19:18, David Lee wrote: --------- Micheal For maps we wanted the value part of a (key-value) pair to be ANY value, and to achieve that using element nodes would require an extension of XDM element nodes to the point where they bore little relationship to elements in XML. You could make map (and map-entry) into new kinds of node, and we considered that option, but then you would burden them with identity and parentage which we didn't want. ------- So to flip this on its head ... if we got rid of node identity and parentage then Maps would fit well into the XDM model.
Well, not entirely. You would still break the presumption that (with the exception of type annotations and base URI) there's a lossless round-trip conversion between XDM nodes and lexical XML.
But you're right, it's totally impractical to think of doing this kind of thing except as a radical re-invention of the whole XML stack.
Michael Kay Saxonica |
