RE: Abstract Interpretation of XSLT stylesheets

[Kay Michael <Michael dot Kay at icl dot com>]

> XSLT is a declarative language, not a functional language. Think SQL.

I think that's open to debate. XPath is certainly declarative, and the
pattern-matching template rules of XSLT could also be described as
declarative, but the call-template mechanism and the way variables and
parameters work has a strong "functional" feel to it, even though the
inability to manipulate functions as values means that it's not a
fully-fledged functional programming language.

Incidentally, while the SELECT statement in SQL is declarative, procedures
in SQL are rather heavily procedural.

Mike Kay


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list