[xquery-talk] min max and mix

[David Lee]

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Cripes. It's not that far fetched that

<b>8<c>2</c><d>3</d><e>3</e></b>

might mean

element b (total 8) consists of sub elements of d , e and f that contribute 2, 3 and 3 respectively to whoever designed it.
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Its not far fetched that it also means
   8 *c(2) + d(3) + e(4) 

Its not far fetched  but its not what it *actually* means in XML languages (particularly this comes from the rule of how atomization of XML works).


There is defined default behaviour then then is 'whaterver you want behaviour'.  You actually have it both ... you are free 
to parse the XML and assign whatever meaning you want.

In general, I submit, one should be careful about presuming what things *might mean* in languages (computer, human, and biological).
It is fun to speculate but one is usually totally wrong.

Now your use case could be *coerced* to mean what you say but it's not the default defined behavior.

It's not farfetched that in C 

"a" + "b" + "c"  == "abc"

but its not actually true.




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