[xquery-talk] Re: position() and atomic values

[Pierrick Brihaye]

Hi,

Michael Kay <mhk at ...> writes:

> It's very hard to come up with plausible examples for using position()
> outside a predicate in XQuery

Indeed :-) The same for last() I presume. So... what make them different from
the other "Context Functions" (http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions/#context) ?

let $a := ("a","b","","d")
for $b in $a
return
  fn:current-dateTime()

... returns no error whereas...

let $a := ("a","b","","d")
for $b in $a
return
  position()

...does.

> position(), like ., plays little role in FLWOR expressions because unlike
> xsl:for-each in XSLT, a "for" expression does not change the focus. Only "/"
> and "[]" change the focus in XQuery.

That's what I was missing... thank you for the clarification.

Cheers,

p.b.