Re: [xsl] template match syntax - possible bug in MSXML XPath

["Christopher R. Maden" <crism at maden dot org>]

At 23:20 21-09-2001, Julian Reschke wrote:
><xsl:template match="(xsl:transform|xsl:stylesheet)/@version">
>
>1) MSXML's XSLT engine executes it, reporting no error (and printing "1.0"
>when applied to an XSLT source).
>
>2) Both Saxon and Xalan report errors when parsing the second template
>(Saxon: Error in expression (xsl:transform|xsl:stylesheet)/@version:
>Unexpected token
>in pattern, found "(").
>
>Now I realize that if Saxon (and Xalan) complain, they are probably right.
>
>So:
>
>a) Is this a conformance bug in Microsoft's implementation?
>
>b) What's the most compact way to write the match in a syntax which is
>actually allowed in XPath?

This is definitely a(nother) MSXML bug.  Which version of MSXML are you using?

The XSLT grammar does not allow (expression|expression)/expression as a [1] 
Pattern.

Patterns can be Patterns separated by '|', which this is not, or they can 
be [2] LocationPathPatterns, which means they start with '/', '//', or 
'id', or are [4] RelativePathPatterns.  RelativePathPatterns can only be 
[5] StepPatterns separated by '/' or '//', and parentheses aren't allowed 
at the top of a StepPattern.

This is a valid XPath [14] Expr, which may explain MSXML's behavior, but 
it's not a valid [1] LocationPath for similar reasons to why it's not a 
LocationPathPattern.

-Chris
-- 
Christopher R. Maden, Principal Consultant, HMM Consulting Int'l, Inc.
DTDs/schemas - conversion - ebooks - publishing - Web - B2B - training
<URL: http://www.hmmci.com/ > <URL: http://crism.maden.org/consulting/ >
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