XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language

2.1.1 Static Context

[Definition: The static context of an expression is the information that is available during static analysis of the expression, prior to its evaluation.] This information can be used to decide whether the expression contains a static error. If analysis of an expression relies on some component of the static context that has not been assigned a value, a static error is raised [err:XPST0001].

The individual components of the static context are summarized below. Rules governing the scope and initialization of these components can be found in C.1 Static Context Components.

• [Definition: XPath 1.0 compatibility mode. This component must be set by all host languages that include XPath 2.0 as a subset, indicating whether rules for compatibility with XPath 1.0 are in effect. XQuery sets the value of this component to false. ]

• [Definition: Statically known namespaces. This is a set of (prefix, URI) pairs that define all the namespaces that are known during static processing of a given expression.] The URI value is whitespace normalized according to the rules for the xs:anyURI type in [XML Schema]. Note the difference between in-scope namespaces, which is a dynamic property of an element node, and statically known namespaces, which is a static property of an expression.

  Some namespaces are predefined; additional namespaces can be added to the statically known namespaces by namespace declarations in a Prolog and by namespace declaration attributes in direct element constructors.

• [Definition: Default element/type namespace. This is a namespace URI or "none". The namespace URI, if present, is used for any unprefixed QName appearing in a position where an element or type name is expected.] The URI value is whitespace normalized according to the rules for the xs:anyURI type in [XML Schema].

• [Definition: Default function namespace. This is a namespace URI or "none". The namespace URI, if present, is used for any unprefixed QName appearing in a position where a function name is expected.] The URI value is whitespace normalized according to the rules for the xs:anyURI type in [XML Schema].

• [Definition: In-scope schema definitions. This is a generic term for all the element declarations, attribute declarations, and schema type definitions that are in scope during processing of an expression.] It includes the following three parts:

  • [Definition: In-scope schema types. Each schema type definition is identified either by an expanded QName (for a named type) or by an implementation-dependent type identifier (for an anonymous type). The in-scope schema types include the predefined schema types described in 2.5.1 Predefined Schema Types. If the Schema Import Feature is supported, in-scope schema types also include all type definitions found in imported schemas. ]

  • [Definition: In-scope element declarations. Each element declaration is identified either by an expanded QName (for a top-level element declaration) or by an implementation-dependent element identifier (for a local element declaration). If the Schema Import Feature is supported, in-scope element declarations include all element declarations found in imported schemas. ] An element declaration includes information about the element's substitution group affiliation.

    [Definition: Substitution groups are defined in [XML Schema] Part 1, Section 2.2.2.2. Informally, the substitution group headed by a given element (called the head element) consists of the set of elements that can be substituted for the head element without affecting the outcome of schema validation.]

  • [Definition: In-scope attribute declarations. Each attribute declaration is identified either by an expanded QName (for a top-level attribute declaration) or by an implementation-dependent attribute identifier (for a local attribute declaration). If the Schema Import Feature is supported, in-scope attribute declarations include all attribute declarations found in imported schemas.]

• [Definition: In-scope variables. This is a set of (expanded QName, type) pairs. It defines the set of variables that are available for reference within an expression. The expanded QName is the name of the variable, and the type is the static type of the variable.]

  Variable declarations in a Prolog are added to in-scope variables. An expression that binds a variable (such as a let, for, some, or every expression) extends the in-scope variables of its subexpressions with the new bound variable and its type. Within a function declaration, the in-scope variables are extended by the names and types of the function parameters.

  The static type of a variable may be either declared in a query or (if the Static Typing Feature is enabled) inferred by static type inference rules as described in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics].

• [Definition: Context item static type. This component defines the static type of the context item within the scope of a given expression.]

• [Definition: Function signatures. This component defines the set of functions that are available to be called from within an expression. Each function is uniquely identified by its expanded QName and its arity (number of parameters).] In addition to the name and arity, each function signature specifies the static types of the function parameters and result.

  The function signatures include the signatures of constructor functions, which are discussed in 3.12.5 Constructor Functions.

• [Definition: Statically known collations. This is an implementation-defined set of (URI, collation) pairs. It defines the names of the collations that are available for use in processing queries and expressions.] [Definition: A collation is a specification of the manner in which strings and URIs are compared and, by extension, ordered. For a more complete definition of collation, see [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators].]

• [Definition: Default collation. This identifies one of the collations in statically known collations as the collation to be used by functions and operators for comparing and ordering values of type xs:string and xs:anyURI (and types derived from them) when no explicit collation is specified.]

• [Definition: Construction mode. The construction mode governs the behavior of element and document node constructors. If construction mode is preserve, the type of a constructed element node is xs:anyType, and all attribute and element nodes copied during node construction retain their original types. If construction mode is strip, the type of a constructed element node is xdt:untyped; all element nodes copied during node construction receive the type xdt:untyped, and all attribute nodes copied during node construction receive the type xdt:untypedAtomic.]

• [Definition: Ordering mode. Ordering mode, which has the value ordered or unordered, affects the ordering of the result sequence returned by certain path expressions, union, intersect, and except expressions, and FLWOR expressions that have no order by clause.] Details are provided in the descriptions of these expressions.

• [Definition: Default order for empty sequences. This component controls the processing of empty sequences and NaN values as ordering keys in an order by clause in a FLWOR expression, as described in 3.8.3 Order By and Return Clauses.] Its value may be greatest or least.

• [Definition: Boundary-space policy. This component controls the processing of boundary whitespace by direct element constructors, as described in 3.7.1.4 Boundary Whitespace.] Its value may be preserve or strip.

• [Definition: Copy-namespaces mode. This component controls the namespace bindings that are assigned when an existing element node is copied by an element constructor, as described in 3.7.1 Direct Element Constructors. Its value consists of two parts: preserve or no-preserve, and inherit or no-inherit.]

• [Definition: Base URI. This is an absolute URI, used when necessary in the resolution of relative URIs (for example, by the fn:resolve-uri function.)] The URI value is whitespace normalized according to the rules for the xs:anyURI type in [XML Schema].

• [Definition: Statically known documents. This is a mapping from strings onto types. The string represents the absolute URI of a resource that is potentially available using the fn:doc function. The type is the static type of a call to fn:doc with the given URI as its literal argument. ] If the argument to fn:doc is a string literal that is not present in statically known documents, then the static type of fn:doc is document-node()?.

  Note:

  The purpose of the statically known documents is to provide static type information, not to determine which documents are available. A URI need not be found in the statically known documents to be accessed using fn:doc.

• [Definition: Statically known collections. This is a mapping from strings onto types. The string represents the absolute URI of a resource that is potentially available using the fn:collection function. The type is the type of the sequence of nodes that would result from calling the fn:collection function with this URI as its argument.] If the argument to fn:collection is a string literal that is not present in statically known collections, then the static type of fn:collection is node()*.

  Note:

  The purpose of the statically known collections is to provide static type information, not to determine which collections are available. A URI need not be found in the statically known collections to be accessed using fn:collection.

• [Definition: Statically known default collection type. This is the type of the sequence of nodes that would result from calling the fn:collection function with no arguments.] Unless initialized to some other value by an implementation, the value of statically known default collection type is node()*.

2.1.2 Dynamic Context

[Definition: The dynamic context of an expression is defined as information that is available at the time the expression is evaluated.] If evaluation of an expression relies on some part of the dynamic context that has not been assigned a value, a dynamic error is raised [err:XPDY0002].

The individual components of the dynamic context are summarized below. Further rules governing the semantics of these components can be found in C.2 Dynamic Context Components.

The dynamic context consists of all the components of the static context, and the additional components listed below.

[Definition: The first three components of the dynamic context (context item, context position, and context size) are called the focus of the expression. ] The focus enables the processor to keep track of which items are being processed by the expression.

Certain language constructs, notably the path expression E1/E2 and the filter expression E1[E2], create a new focus for the evaluation of a sub-expression. In these constructs, E2 is evaluated once for each item in the sequence that results from evaluating E1. Each time E2 is evaluated, it is evaluated with a different focus. The focus for evaluating E2 is referred to below as the inner focus, while the focus for evaluating E1 is referred to as the outer focus. The inner focus exists only while E2 is being evaluated. When this evaluation is complete, evaluation of the containing expression continues with its original focus unchanged.

• [Definition: The context item is the item currently being processed. An item is either an atomic value or a node.][Definition: When the context item is a node, it can also be referred to as the context node.] The context item is returned by an expression consisting of a single dot (.). When an expression E1/E2 or E1[E2] is evaluated, each item in the sequence obtained by evaluating E1 becomes the context item in the inner focus for an evaluation of E2.

• [Definition: The context position is the position of the context item within the sequence of items currently being processed.] It changes whenever the context item changes. Its value is always an integer greater than zero. The context position is returned by the expression fn:position(). When an expression E1/E2 or E1[E2] is evaluated, the context position in the inner focus for an evaluation of E2 is the position of the context item in the sequence obtained by evaluating E1. The position of the first item in a sequence is always 1 (one). The context position is always less than or equal to the context size.

• [Definition: The context size is the number of items in the sequence of items currently being processed.] Its value is always an integer greater than zero. The context size is returned by the expression fn:last(). When an expression E1/E2 or E1[E2] is evaluated, the context size in the inner focus for an evaluation of E2 is the number of items in the sequence obtained by evaluating E1.

• [Definition: Variable values. This is a set of (expanded QName, value) pairs. It contains the same expanded QNames as the in-scope variables in the static context for the expression. The expanded QName is the name of the variable and the value is the dynamic value of the variable, which includes its dynamic type.]

• [Definition: Function implementations. Each function in function signatures has a function implementation that enables the function to map instances of its parameter types into an instance of its result type. For a user-defined function, the function implementation is an XQuery expression. For a built-in function or external function, the function implementation is implementation-dependent.]

• [Definition: Current dateTime. This information represents an implementation-dependent point in time during the processing of a query, and includes an explicit timezone. It can be retrieved by the fn:current-dateTime function. If invoked multiple times during the execution of a query, this function always returns the same result.]

• [Definition: Implicit timezone. This is the timezone to be used when a date, time, or dateTime value that does not have a timezone is used in a comparison or arithmetic operation. The implicit timezone is an implementation-defined value of type xdt:dayTimeDuration. See [XML Schema] for the range of legal values of a timezone.]

• [Definition: Available documents. This is a mapping of strings onto document nodes. The string represents the absolute URI of a resource. The document node is the root of a tree that represents that resource using the data model. The document node is returned by the fn:doc function when applied to that URI.] The set of available documents is not limited to the set of statically known documents, and it may be empty.

• [Definition: Available collections. This is a mapping of strings onto sequences of nodes. The string represents the absolute URI of a resource. The sequence of nodes represents the result of the fn:collection function when that URI is supplied as the argument. ] The set of available collections is not limited to the set of statically known collections, and it may be empty.

• [Definition: Default collection. This is the sequence of nodes that would result from calling the fn:collection function with no arguments.] The value of default collection may be initialized by the implementation.

2.2.1 Data Model Generation

Before a query can be processed, its input data must be represented as an XDM instance. This process occurs outside the domain of XQuery, which is why Figure 1 represents it in the external processing domain. Here are some steps by which an XML document might be converted to an XDM instance:

1. A document may be parsed using an XML parser that generates an XML Information Set (see [XML Infoset]). The parsed document may then be validated against one or more schemas. This process, which is described in [XML Schema], results in an abstract information structure called the Post-Schema Validation Infoset (PSVI). If a document has no associated schema, its Information Set is preserved. (See DM1 in Fig. 1.)

2. The Information Set or PSVI may be transformed into an XDM instance by a process described in [XQuery/XPath Data Model (XDM)]. (See DM2 in Fig. 1.)

The above steps provide an example of how an XDM instance might be constructed. An XDM instance might also be synthesized directly from a relational database, or constructed in some other way (see DM3 in Fig. 1.) XQuery is defined in terms of the data model, but it does not place any constraints on how XDM instances are constructed.

[Definition: Each element node and attribute node in an XDM instance has a type annotation (referred to in [XQuery/XPath Data Model (XDM)] as its type-name property.) The type annotation of a node is a schema type that describes the relationship between the string value of the node and its typed value.] If the XDM instance was derived from a validated XML document as described in Section 3.3 Construction from a PSVI^DM, the type annotations of the element and attribute nodes are derived from schema validation. XQuery does not provide a way to directly access the type annotation of an element or attribute node.

The value of an attribute is represented directly within the attribute node. An attribute node whose type is unknown (such as might occur in a schemaless document) is given the type annotation xdt:untypedAtomic.

The value of an element is represented by the children of the element node, which may include text nodes and other element nodes. The type annotation of an element node indicates how the values in its child text nodes are to be interpreted. An element that has not been validated (such as might occur in a schemaless document) is annotated with the schema type xdt:untyped. An element that has been validated and found to be partially valid is annotated with the schema type xs:anyType. If an element node is annotated as xdt:untyped, all its descendant element nodes are also annotated as xdt:untyped. However, if an element node is annotated as xs:anyType, some of its descendant element nodes may have a more specific type annotation.

2.2.2 Schema Import Processing

2.2.3 Expression Processing

XQuery defines two phases of processing called the static analysis phase and the dynamic evaluation phase (see Fig. 1). During the static analysis phase, static errors, dynamic errors, or type errors may be raised. During the dynamic evaluation phase, only dynamic errors or type errors may be raised. These kinds of errors are defined in 2.3.1 Kinds of Errors.

Within each phase, an implementation is free to use any strategy or algorithm whose result conforms to the specifications in this document.

2.2.4 Serialization

[Definition: Serialization is the process of converting an XDM instance into a sequence of octets (step DM4 in Figure 1.) ] The general framework for serialization is described in [XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization].

2.2.5 Consistency Constraints

In order for XQuery to be well defined, the input XDM instance, the static context, and the dynamic context must be mutually consistent. The consistency constraints listed below are prerequisites for correct functioning of an XQuery implementation. Enforcement of these consistency constraints is beyond the scope of this specification. This specification does not define the result of a query under any condition in which one or more of these constraints is not satisfied.

Some of the consistency constraints use the term data model schema. [Definition: For a given node in an XDM instance, the data model schema is defined as the schema from which the type annotation of that node was derived.] For a node that was constructed by some process other than schema validation, the data model schema consists simply of the schema type definition that is represented by the type annotation of the node.

• For every node that has a type annotation, if that type annotation is found in the in-scope schema definitions (ISSD), then its definition in the ISSD must be equivalent to its definition in the data model schema. Furthermore, all types that are derived by extension from the given type in the data model schema must also be known by equivalent definitions in the ISSD.

• For every element name EN that is found both in an XDM instance and in the in-scope schema definitions (ISSD), all elements that are known in the data model schema to be in the substitution group headed by EN must also be known in the ISSD to be in the substitution group headed by EN.

• Every element name, attribute name, or schema type name referenced in in-scope variables or function signatures must be in the in-scope schema definitions, unless it is an element name referenced as part of an ElementTest or an attribute name referenced as part of an AttributeTest.

• Any reference to a global element, attribute, or type name in the in-scope schema definitions must have a corresponding element, attribute or type definition in the in-scope schema definitions.

• For each mapping of a string to a document node in available documents, if there exists a mapping of the same string to a document type in statically known documents, the document node must match the document type, using the matching rules in 2.5.4 SequenceType Matching.

• For each mapping of a string to a sequence of nodes in available collections, if there exists a mapping of the same string to a type in statically known collections, the sequence of nodes must match the type, using the matching rules in 2.5.4 SequenceType Matching.

• The sequence of nodes in the default collection must match the statically known default collection type, using the matching rules in 2.5.4 SequenceType Matching.

• The value of the context item must match the context item static type, using the matching rules in 2.5.4 SequenceType Matching.

• For each (variable, type) pair in in-scope variables and the corresponding (variable, value) pair in variable values such that the variable names are equal, the value must match the type, using the matching rules in 2.5.4 SequenceType Matching.

• For each variable declared as external: If the variable declaration includes a declared type, the external environment must provide a value for the variable that matches the declared type, using the matching rules in 2.5.4 SequenceType Matching. If the variable declaration does not include a declared type, the external environment must provide a type and a matching value, using the same matching rules.

• For a given query, define a participating ISSD as the in-scope schema definitions of a module that is used in evaluating the query. If two participating ISSDs contain a definition for the same schema type, element name, or attribute name, the definitions must be equivalent in both ISSDs. Furthermore, if two participating ISSDs each contain a definition of a schema type T, the set of types derived by extension from T must be equivalent in both ISSDs. Also, if two participating ISSDs each contain a definition of an element name E, the substitution group headed by E must be equivalent in both ISSDs.

• In the statically known namespaces, the prefix xml must not be bound to any namespace URI other than http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace, and no prefix other than xml may be bound to this namespace URI.

2.3.1 Kinds of Errors

As described in 2.2.3 Expression Processing, XQuery defines a static analysis phase, which does not depend on input data, and a dynamic evaluation phase, which does depend on input data. Errors may be raised during each phase.

[Definition: A static error is an error that must be detected during the static analysis phase. A syntax error is an example of a static error.]

[Definition: A dynamic error is an error that must be detected during the dynamic evaluation phase and may be detected during the static analysis phase. Numeric overflow is an example of a dynamic error. ]

[Definition: A type error may be raised during the static analysis phase or the dynamic evaluation phase. During the static analysis phase, a type error occurs when the static type of an expression does not match the expected type of the context in which the expression occurs. During the dynamic evaluation phase, a type error occurs when the dynamic type of a value does not match the expected type of the context in which the value occurs. ]

The outcome of the static analysis phase is either success or one or more type errors, static errors, or statically-detected dynamic errors. The result of the dynamic evaluation phase is either a result value, a type error, or a dynamic error.

During the static analysis phase, if the Static Typing Feature is in effect and the static type assigned to an expression other than () or data(()) is empty-sequence(), a static error is raised [err:XPST0005]. This catches cases in which a query refers to an element or attribute that is not present in the in-scope schema definitions, possibly because of a spelling error.

Independently of whether the Static Typing Feature is in effect, if an implementation can determine during the static analysis phase that an expression, if evaluated, would necessarily raise a type error or a dynamic error, the implementation may (but is not required to) report that error during the static analysis phase. However, the fn:error() function must not be evaluated during the static analysis phase.

[Definition: In addition to static errors, dynamic errors, and type errors, an XQuery implementation may raise warnings, either during the static analysis phase or the dynamic evaluation phase. The circumstances in which warnings are raised, and the ways in which warnings are handled, are implementation-defined.]

In addition to the errors defined in this specification, an implementation may raise a dynamic error for a reason beyond the scope of this specification. For example, limitations may exist on the maximum numbers or sizes of various objects. Any such limitations, and the consequences of exceeding them, are implementation-dependent.

2.3.2 Identifying and Reporting Errors

The errors defined in this specification are identified by QNames that have the form err:XXYYnnnn, where:

• err denotes the namespace for XPath and XQuery errors, http://www.w3.org/2005/xqt-errors. This binding of the namespace prefix err is used for convenience in this document, and is not normative.

• XX denotes the language in which the error is defined, using the following encoding:

  • XP denotes an error defined by XPath. Such an error may also occur XQuery since XQuery includes XPath as a subset.

  • XQ denotes an error defined by XQuery.

• YY denotes the error category, using the following encoding:

  • ST denotes a static error.

  • DY denotes a dynamic error.

  • TY denotes a type error.

• nnnn is a unique numeric code.

The method by which an XQuery processor reports error information to the external environment is implementation-defined.

An error can be represented by a URI reference that is derived from the error QName as follows: an error with namespace URI NS and local part LP can be represented as the URI reference NS#LP. For example, an error whose QName is err:XPST0017 could be represented as http://www.w3.org/2005/xqt-errors#XPST0017.

2.3.3 Handling Dynamic Errors

Except as noted in this document, if any operand of an expression raises a dynamic error, the expression also raises a dynamic error. If an expression can validly return a value or raise a dynamic error, the implementation may choose to return the value or raise the dynamic error. For example, the logical expression expr1 and expr2 may return the value false if either operand returns false, or may raise a dynamic error if either operand raises a dynamic error.

If more than one operand of an expression raises an error, the implementation may choose which error is raised by the expression. For example, in this expression:

($x div $y) + xs:decimal($z)

both the sub-expressions ($x div $y) and xs:decimal($z) may raise an error. The implementation may choose which error is raised by the "+" expression. Once one operand raises an error, the implementation is not required, but is permitted, to evaluate any other operands.

[Definition: In addition to its identifying QName, a dynamic error may also carry a descriptive string and one or more additional values called error values.] An implementation may provide a mechanism whereby an application-defined error handler can process error values and produce diagnostic messages.

A dynamic error may be raised by a built-in function or operator. For example, the div operator raises an error if its operands are xs:decimal values and its second operand is equal to zero. Errors raised by built-in functions and operators are defined in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators].

A dynamic error can also be raised explicitly by calling the fn:error function, which only raises an error and never returns a value. This function is defined in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators]. For example, the following function call raises a dynamic error, providing a QName that identifies the error, a descriptive string, and a diagnostic value (assuming that the prefix app is bound to a namespace containing application-defined error codes):

fn:error(xs:QName("app:err057"), "Unexpected value", fn:string($v))

2.3.4 Errors and Optimization

Because different implementations may choose to evaluate or optimize an expression in different ways, certain aspects of the detection and reporting of dynamic errors are implementation-dependent, as described in this section.

An implementation is always free to evaluate the operands of an operator in any order.

In some cases, a processor can determine the result of an expression without accessing all the data that would be implied by the formal expression semantics. For example, the formal description of filter expressions suggests that $s[1] should be evaluated by examining all the items in sequence $s, and selecting all those that satisfy the predicate position()=1. In practice, many implementations will recognize that they can evaluate this expression by taking the first item in the sequence and then exiting. If $s is defined by an expression such as //book[author eq 'Berners-Lee'], then this strategy may avoid a complete scan of a large document and may therefore greatly improve performance. However, a consequence of this strategy is that a dynamic error or type error that would be detected if the expression semantics were followed literally might not be detected at all if the evaluation exits early. In this example, such an error might occur if there is a book element in the input data with more than one author subelement.

The extent to which a processor may optimize its access to data, at the cost of not detecting errors, is defined by the following rules.

Consider an expression Q that has an operand (sub-expression) E. In general the value of E is a sequence. At an intermediate stage during evaluation of the sequence, some of its items will be known and others will be unknown. If, at such an intermediate stage of evaluation, a processor is able to establish that there are only two possible outcomes of evaluating Q, namely the value V or an error, then the processor may deliver the result V without evaluating further items in the operand E. For this purpose, two values are considered to represent the same outcome if their items are pairwise the same, where nodes are the same if they have the same identity, and values are the same if they are equal and have exactly the same type.

There is an exception to this rule: a processor is required to establish that the actual value of the operand E does not violate any constraints on its cardinality. For example, the expression $e eq 0 results in a type error if the value of $e contains two or more items. A processor is not allowed to decide, after evaluating the first item in the value of $e and finding it equal to zero, that the only possible outcomes are the value true or a type error caused by the cardinality violation. It must establish that the value of $e contains no more than one item.

These rules apply to all the operands of an expression considered in combination: thus if an expression has two operands E1 and E2, it may be evaluated using any samples of the respective sequences that satisfy the above rules.

The rules cascade: if A is an operand of B and B is an operand of C, then the processor needs to evaluate only a sufficient sample of B to determine the value of C, and needs to evaluate only a sufficient sample of A to determine this sample of B.

The effect of these rules is that the processor is free to stop examining further items in a sequence as soon as it can establish that further items would not affect the result except possibly by causing an error. For example, the processor may return true as the result of the expression S1 = S2 as soon as it finds a pair of equal values from the two sequences.

Another consequence of these rules is that where none of the items in a sequence contributes to the result of an expression, the processor is not obliged to evaluate any part of the sequence. Again, however, the processor cannot dispense with a required cardinality check: if an empty sequence is not permitted in the relevant context, then the processor must ensure that the operand is not an empty sequence.

Examples:

• If an implementation can find (for example, by using an index) that at least one item returned by $expr1 in the following example has the value 47, it is allowed to return true as the result of the some expression, without searching for another item returned by $expr1 that would raise an error if it were evaluated.

  some $x in $expr1 satisfies $x = 47
  

• In the following example, if an implementation can find (for example, by using an index) the product element-nodes that have an id child with the value 47, it is allowed to return these nodes as the result of the path expression, without searching for another product node that would raise an error because it has an id child whose value is not an integer.

  //product[id = 47]
  

For a variety of reasons, including optimization, implementations are free to rewrite expressions into equivalent expressions. Other than the raising or not raising of errors, the result of evaluating an equivalent expression must be the same as the result of evaluating the original expression. Expression rewrite is illustrated by the following examples.

• Consider the expression //part[color eq "Red"]. An implementation might choose to rewrite this expression as //part[color = "Red"][color eq "Red"]. The implementation might then process the expression as follows: First process the "=" predicate by probing an index on parts by color to quickly find all the parts that have a Red color; then process the "eq" predicate by checking each of these parts to make sure it has only a single color. The result would be as follows:

  • Parts that have exactly one color that is Red are returned.

  • If some part has color Red together with some other color, an error is raised.

  • The existence of some part that has no color Red but has multiple non-Red colors does not trigger an error.

• The expression in the following example cannot raise a casting error if it is evaluated exactly as written (i.e., left to right). An implementation is permitted, however, to reorder the predicates to achieve better performance (for example, by taking advantage of an index). This reordering could cause the expression to raise an error.

  $N[@x castable as xs:date][xs:date(@x) gt xs:date("2000-01-01")]
  

  To avoid unexpected errors caused by expression rewrite, tests that are designed to prevent dynamic errors should be expressed using conditional or typeswitch expressions. Conditional and typeswitch expressions raise only dynamic errors that occur in the branch that is actually selected. Thus, unlike the previous example, the following example cannot raise a dynamic error if @x is not castable into an xs:date:

  $N[if (@x castable as xs:date)
     then xs:date(@x) gt xs:date("2000-01-01")
     else false()]
  

2.4.1 Document Order

An ordering called document order is defined among all the nodes accessible during processing of a given query, which may consist of one or more trees (documents or fragments). Document order is defined in [XQuery/XPath Data Model (XDM)], and its definition is repeated here for convenience. [Definition: The node ordering that is the reverse of document order is called reverse document order.]

Document order is a total ordering, although the relative order of some nodes is implementation-dependent. [Definition: Informally, document order is the order in which nodes appear in the XML serialization of a document.] [Definition: Document order is stable, which means that the relative order of two nodes will not change during the processing of a given query, even if this order is implementation-dependent.]

Within a tree, document order satisfies the following constraints:

1. The root node is the first node.

2. Every node occurs before all of its children and descendants.

3. Attribute nodes immediately follow the element node with which they are associated. The relative order of attribute nodes is stable but implementation-dependent.

4. The relative order of siblings is the order in which they occur in the children property of their parent node.

5. Children and descendants occur before following siblings.

The relative order of nodes in distinct trees is stable but implementation-dependent, subject to the following constraint: If any node in a given tree T1 is before any node in a different tree T2, then all nodes in tree T1 are before all nodes in tree T2.

2.4.2 Atomization

The semantics of some XQuery operators depend on a process called atomization. Atomization is applied to a value when the value is used in a context in which a sequence of atomic values is required. The result of atomization is either a sequence of atomic values or a type error [err:FOTY0012]. [Definition: Atomization of a sequence is defined as the result of invoking the fn:data function on the sequence, as defined in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators].]

The semantics of fn:data are repeated here for convenience. The result of fn:data is the sequence of atomic values produced by applying the following rules to each item in the input sequence:

• If the item is an atomic value, it is returned.

• If the item is a node, its typed value is returned (err:FOTY0012 is raised if the node has no typed value.)

Atomization is used in processing the following types of expressions:

• Arithmetic expressions

• Comparison expressions

• Function calls and returns

• Cast expressions

• Constructor expressions for various kinds of nodes

• order by clauses in FLWOR expressions

2.4.3 Effective Boolean Value

Under certain circumstances (listed below), it is necessary to find the effective boolean value of a value. [Definition: The effective boolean value of a value is defined as the result of applying the fn:boolean function to the value, as defined in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators].]

The dynamic semantics of fn:boolean are repeated here for convenience:

1. If its operand is an empty sequence, fn:boolean returns false.

2. If its operand is a sequence whose first item is a node, fn:boolean returns true.

3. If its operand is a singleton value of type xs:boolean or derived from xs:boolean, fn:boolean returns the value of its operand unchanged.

4. If its operand is a singleton value of type xs:string, xdt:untypedAtomic, or a type derived from one of these, fn:boolean returns false if the operand value has zero length; otherwise it returns true.

5. If its operand is a singleton value of any numeric type or derived from a numeric type, fn:boolean returns false if the operand value is NaN or is numerically equal to zero; otherwise it returns true.

6. In all other cases, fn:boolean raises a type error [err:FORG0006].

The effective boolean value of a sequence is computed implicitly during processing of the following types of expressions:

• Logical expressions (and, or)

• The fn:not function

• The where clause of a FLWOR expression

• Certain types of predicates, such as a[b]

• Conditional expressions (if)

• Quantified expressions (some, every)

2.4.4 Input Sources

XQuery has a set of functions that provide access to input data. These functions are of particular importance because they provide a way in which an expression can reference a document or a collection of documents. The input functions are described informally here; they are defined in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators].

An expression can access input data either by calling one of the input functions or by referencing some part of the dynamic context that is initialized by the external environment, such as a variable or context item.

The input functions supported by XQuery are as follows:

• The fn:doc function takes a string containing a URI. If that URI is associated with a document in available documents, fn:doc returns a document node whose content is the data model representation of the given document; otherwise it raises a dynamic error (see [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators] for details).

• The fn:collection function with one argument takes a string containing a URI. If that URI is associated with a collection in available collections, fn:collection returns the data model representation of that collection; otherwise it raises a dynamic error (see [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators] for details). A collection may be any sequence of nodes. For example, the expression fn:collection("http://example.org")//customer identifies all the customer elements that are descendants of nodes found in the collection whose URI is http://example.org.

• The fn:collection function with zero arguments returns the default collection, an implementation-dependent sequence of nodes.

If one of the above functions is invoked repeatedly with arguments that resolve to the same absolute URI during the processing of a single query, each invocation must return the same node sequence. This rule applies also to repeated invocations of fn:collection with zero arguments during the processing of a single query.

2.5.1 Predefined Schema Types

1. [Definition: xdt:untyped is used as the type annotation of an element node that has not been validated, or has been validated in skip mode.] No predefined schema types are derived from xdt:untyped.

2. [Definition: xdt:untypedAtomic is an atomic type that is used to denote untyped atomic data, such as text that has not been assigned a more specific type.] An attribute that has been validated in skip mode is represented in the data model by an attribute node with the type annotation xdt:untypedAtomic. No predefined schema types are derived from xdt:untypedAtomic.

3. [Definition: xdt:dayTimeDuration is derived by restriction from xs:duration. The lexical representation of xdt:dayTimeDuration is restricted to contain only day, hour, minute, and second components.]

4. [Definition: xdt:yearMonthDuration is derived by restriction from xs:duration. The lexical representation of xdt:yearMonthDuration is restricted to contain only year and month components.]

5. [Definition: xdt:anyAtomicType is an atomic type that includes all atomic values (and no values that are not atomic). Its base type is xs:anySimpleType from which all simple types, including atomic, list, and union types, are derived. All primitive atomic types, such as xs:integer, xs:string, and xdt:untypedAtomic, have xdt:anyAtomicType as their base type.]

   Note:

   xdt:anyAtomicType will not appear as the type of an actual value in an XDM instance.

The relationships among the schema types in the xs and xdt namespaces are illustrated in Figure 2. A more complete description of the XQuery type hierarchy can be found in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators].

Figure 2: Hierarchy of Schema Types used in XQuery

2.5.2 Typed Value and String Value

Every node has a typed value and a string value. [Definition: The typed value of a node is a sequence of atomic values and can be extracted by applying the fn:data function to the node.] [Definition: The string value of a node is a string and can be extracted by applying the fn:string function to the node.] Definitions of fn:data and fn:string can be found in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators].

An implementation may store both the typed value and the string value of a node, or it may store only one of these and derive the other from it as needed. The string value of a node must be a valid lexical representation of the typed value of the node, but the node is not required to preserve the string representation from the original source document. For example, if the typed value of a node is the xs:integer value 30, its string value might be "30" or "0030".

• If the node was created by mapping from an Infoset or PSVI, see rules in [XQuery/XPath Data Model (XDM)].

• If the node was created by an XQuery node constructor, see rules in 3.7.1 Direct Element Constructors, 3.7.3.1 Computed Element Constructors, or 3.7.3.2 Computed Attribute Constructors.

• If the node was created by a validate expression, see rules in 3.13 Validate Expressions.

As a convenience to the reader, the relationship between typed value and string value for various kinds of nodes is summarized and illustrated by examples below.

1. For text and document nodes, the typed value of the node is the same as its string value, as an instance of the type xdt:untypedAtomic. The string value of a document node is formed by concatenating the string values of all its descendant text nodes, in document order.

2. The typed value of a comment or processing instruction node is the same as its string value. It is an instance of the type xs:string.

3. The typed value of an attribute node with the type annotation xs:anySimpleType or xdt:untypedAtomic is the same as its string value, as an instance of xdt:untypedAtomic. The typed value of an attribute node with any other type annotation is derived from its string value and type annotation using the lexical-to-value-space mapping defined in [XML Schema] Part 2 for the relevant type.

   Example: A1 is an attribute having string value "3.14E-2" and type annotation xs:double. The typed value of A1 is the xs:double value whose lexical representation is 3.14E-2.

   Example: A2 is an attribute with type annotation xs:IDREFS, which is a list datatype whose item type is the atomic datatype xs:IDREF. Its string value is "bar baz faz". The typed value of A2 is a sequence of three atomic values ("bar", "baz", "faz"), each of type xs:IDREF. The typed value of a node is never treated as an instance of a named list type. Instead, if the type annotation of a node is a list type (such as xs:IDREFS), its typed value is treated as a sequence of the atomic type from which it is derived (such as xs:IDREF).

4. For an element node, the relationship between typed value and string value depends on the node's type annotation, as follows:

   1. If the type annotation is xdt:untyped or xs:anySimpleType or denotes a complex type with mixed content (including xs:anyType), then the typed value of the node is equal to its string value, as an instance of xdt:untypedAtomic. However, if the nilled property of the node is true, then its typed value is the empty sequence.

      Example: E1 is an element node having type annotation xdt:untyped and string value "1999-05-31". The typed value of E1 is "1999-05-31", as an instance of xdt:untypedAtomic.

      Example: E2 is an element node with the type annotation formula, which is a complex type with mixed content. The content of E2 consists of the character "H", a child element named subscript with string value "2", and the character "O". The typed value of E2 is "H2O" as an instance of xdt:untypedAtomic.

   2. If the type annotation denotes a simple type or a complex type with simple content, then the typed value of the node is derived from its string value and its type annotation in a way that is consistent with schema validation. However, if the nilled property of the node is true, then its typed value is the empty sequence.

      Example: E3 is an element node with the type annotation cost, which is a complex type that has several attributes and a simple content type of xs:decimal. The string value of E3 is "74.95". The typed value of E3 is 74.95, as an instance of xs:decimal.

      Example: E4 is an element node with the type annotation hatsizelist, which is a simple type derived from the atomic type hatsize, which in turn is derived from xs:integer. The string value of E4 is "7 8 9". The typed value of E4 is a sequence of three values (7, 8, 9), each of type hatsize.

      Example: E5 is an element node with the type annotation my:integer-or-string which is a union type with member types xs:integer and xs:string. The string value of E5 is "47". The typed value of E5 is 47 as an xs:integer, since xs:integer is the member type that validated the content of E5. In general, when the type annotation of a node is a union type, the typed value of the node will be an instance of one of the member types of the union.

      Note:

      If an implementation stores only the string value of a node, and the type annotation of the node is a union type, the implementation must be able to deliver the typed value of the node as an instance of the appropriate member type.

   3. If the type annotation denotes a complex type with empty content, then the typed value of the node is the empty sequence and its string value is the zero-length string.

   4. If the type annotation denotes a complex type with element-only content, then the typed value of the node is undefined. The fn:data function raises a type error [err:FOTY0012] when applied to such a node. The string value of such a node is equal to the concatenated string values of all its text node descendants, in document order.

      Example: E6 is an element node with the type annotation weather, which is a complex type whose content type specifies element-only. E6 has two child elements named temperature and precipitation. The typed value of E6 is undefined, and the fn:data function applied to E6 raises an error.

2.5.3 SequenceType Syntax

Whenever it is necessary to refer to a type in an XQuery expression, the SequenceType syntax is used.

With the exception of the special type empty-sequence(), a sequence type consists of an item type that constrains the type of each item in the sequence, and a cardinality that constrains the number of items in the sequence. Apart from the item type item(), which permits any kind of item, item types divide into node types (such as element()) and atomic types (such as xs:integer).

Item types representing element and attribute nodes may specify the required type annotations of those nodes, in the form of a schema type. Thus the item type element(*, us:address) denotes any element node whose type annotation is (or is derived from) the schema type named us:address.

Here are some examples of sequence types that might be used in XQuery expressions:

• xs:date refers to the built-in atomic schema type named xs:date

• attribute()? refers to an optional attribute node

• element() refers to any element node

• element(po:shipto, po:address) refers to an element node that has the name po:shipto and has the type annotation po:address (or a schema type derived from po:address)

• element(*, po:address) refers to an element node of any name that has the type annotation po:address (or a type derived from po:address)

• element(customer) refers to an element node named customer with any type annotation

• schema-element(customer) refers to an element node whose name is customer (or is in the substitution group headed by customer) and whose type annotation matches the schema type declared for a customer element in the in-scope element declarations

• node()* refers to a sequence of zero or more nodes of any kind

• item()+ refers to a sequence of one or more nodes or atomic values

2.5.4 SequenceType Matching

[Definition: During evaluation of an expression, it is sometimes necessary to determine whether a value with a known dynamic type "matches" an expected sequence type. This process is known as SequenceType matching.] For example, an instance of expression returns true if the dynamic type of a given value matches a given sequence type, or false if it does not.

QNames appearing in a sequence type have their prefixes expanded to namespace URIs by means of the statically known namespaces and (where applicable) the default element/type namespace. As usual, two expanded QNames are equal if their local parts are the same and their namespace URI's are the same. An unprefixed attribute QName is in no namespace.

The rules for SequenceType matching compare the dynamic type of a value with an expected sequence type. These rules are a subset of the formal rules that match a value with an expected type defined in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics], because the Formal Semantics must be able to match values against types that are not expressible using the SequenceType syntax.

Some of the rules for SequenceType matching require determining whether a given schema type is the same as or derived from an expected schema type. The given schema type may be "known" (defined in the in-scope schema definitions), or "unknown" (not defined in the in-scope schema definitions). An unknown schema type might be encountered, for example, if a source document has been validated using a schema that was not imported into the static context. In this case, an implementation is allowed (but is not required) to provide an implementation-dependent mechanism for determining whether the unknown schema type is derived from the expected schema type. For example, an implementation might maintain a data dictionary containing information about type hierarchies.

[Definition: The use of a value whose dynamic type is derived from an expected type is known as subtype substitution.] Subtype substitution does not change the actual type of a value. For example, if an xs:integer value is used where an xs:decimal value is expected, the value retains its type as xs:integer.

The definition of SequenceType matching relies on a pseudo-function named derives-from(AT, ET), which takes an actual simple or complex schema type AT and an expected simple or complex schema type ET, and either returns a boolean value or raises a type error [err:XPTY0004]. The pseudo-function derives-from is defined below and is defined formally in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics].

• derives-from(AT, ET) returns true if ET is a known type and any of the following three conditions is true:

  1. AT is a schema type found in the in-scope schema definitions, and is the same as ET or is derived by restriction or extension from ET

  2. AT is a schema type not found in the in-scope schema definitions, and an implementation-dependent mechanism is able to determine that AT is derived by restriction from ET

  3. There exists some schema type IT such that derives-from(IT, ET) and derives-from(AT, IT) are true.

• derives-from(AT, ET) returns false if ET is a known type and either the first and third or the second and third of the following conditions are true:

  1. AT is a schema type found in the in-scope schema definitions, and is not the same as ET, and is not derived by restriction or extension from ET

  2. AT is a schema type not found in the in-scope schema definitions, and an implementation-dependent mechanism is able to determine that AT is not derived by restriction from ET

  3. No schema type IT exists such that derives-from(IT, ET) and derives-from(AT, IT) are true.

• derives-from(AT, ET) raises a type error [err:XPTY0004] if:

  1. ET is an unknown type, or

  2. AT is an unknown type, and the implementation is not able to determine whether AT is derived by restriction from ET.

The rules for SequenceType matching are given below, with examples (the examples are for purposes of illustration, and do not cover all possible cases).

3.1.1 Literals

[Definition: A literal is a direct syntactic representation of an atomic value.] XQuery supports two kinds of literals: numeric literals and string literals.

The value of a numeric literal containing no "." and no e or E character is an atomic value of type xs:integer. The value of a numeric literal containing "." but no e or E character is an atomic value of type xs:decimal. The value of a numeric literal containing an e or E character is an atomic value of type xs:double. The value of the numeric literal is determined by casting it to the appropriate type according to the rules for casting from xdt:untypedAtomic to a numeric type as specified in Section 17.1.1 Casting from xs:string and xdt:untypedAtomic^FO.

The value of a string literal is an atomic value whose type is xs:string and whose value is the string denoted by the characters between the delimiting apostrophes or quotation marks. If the literal is delimited by apostrophes, two adjacent apostrophes within the literal are interpreted as a single apostrophe. Similarly, if the literal is delimited by quotation marks, two adjacent quotation marks within the literal are interpreted as one quotation mark.

Here are some examples of literal expressions:

• "12.5" denotes the string containing the characters '1', '2', '.', and '5'.

• 12 denotes the xs:integer value twelve.

• 12.5 denotes the xs:decimal value twelve and one half.

• 125E2 denotes the xs:double value twelve thousand, five hundred.

• "He said, ""I don't like it.""" denotes a string containing two quotation marks and one apostrophe.

• "Ben & Jerry's" denotes the xs:string value "Ben & Jerry's".

• "€99.50" denotes the xs:string value "€99.50".

The xs:boolean values true and false can be represented by calls to the built-in functions fn:true() and fn:false(), respectively.

Values of other atomic types can be constructed by calling the constructor function for the given type. The constructor functions for XML Schema built-in types are defined in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators]. In general, the name of a constructor function for a given type is the same as the name of the type (including its namespace). For example:

• xs:integer("12") returns the integer value twelve.

• xs:date("2001-08-25") returns an item whose type is xs:date and whose value represents the date 25th August 2001.

• xdt:dayTimeDuration("PT5H") returns an item whose type is xdt:dayTimeDuration and whose value represents a duration of five hours.

Constructor functions can also be used to create special values that have no literal representation, as in the following examples:

• xs:float("NaN") returns the special floating-point value, "Not a Number."

• xs:double("INF") returns the special double-precision value, "positive infinity."

It is also possible to construct values of various types by using a cast expression. For example:

• 9 cast as hatsize returns the atomic value 9 whose type is hatsize.

3.1.2 Variable References

[Definition: A variable reference is a QName preceded by a $-sign.] Two variable references are equivalent if their local names are the same and their namespace prefixes are bound to the same namespace URI in the statically known namespaces. An unprefixed variable reference is in no namespace.

Every variable reference must match a name in the in-scope variables, which include variables from the following sources:

1. A variable may be declared in a Prolog, in the current module or an imported module. See 4 Modules and Prologs for a discussion of modules and Prologs.

2. The in-scope variables may be augmented by implementation-defined variables.

3. A variable may be bound by an XQuery expression. The kinds of expressions that can bind variables are FLWOR expressions (3.8 FLWOR Expressions), quantified expressions (3.11 Quantified Expressions), and typeswitch expressions (3.12.2 Typeswitch). Function calls also bind values to the formal parameters of functions before executing the function body.

Every variable binding has a static scope. The scope defines where references to the variable can validly occur. It is a static error [err:XPST0008] to reference a variable that is not in scope. If a variable is bound in the static context for an expression, that variable is in scope for the entire expression.

If a variable reference matches two or more variable bindings that are in scope, then the reference is taken as referring to the inner binding, that is, the one whose scope is smaller. At evaluation time, the value of a variable reference is the value of the expression to which the relevant variable is bound. The scope of a variable binding is defined separately for each kind of expression that can bind variables.

3.1.3 Parenthesized Expressions

Parentheses may be used to enforce a particular evaluation order in expressions that contain multiple operators. For example, the expression (2 + 4) * 5 evaluates to thirty, since the parenthesized expression (2 + 4) is evaluated first and its result is multiplied by five. Without parentheses, the expression 2 + 4 * 5 evaluates to twenty-two, because the multiplication operator has higher precedence than the addition operator.

Empty parentheses are used to denote an empty sequence, as described in 3.3.1 Constructing Sequences.

3.1.4 Context Item Expression

A context item expression evaluates to the context item, which may be either a node (as in the expression fn:doc("bib.xml")/books/book[fn:count(./author)>1]) or an atomic value (as in the expression (1 to 100)[. mod 5 eq 0]).

If the context item is undefined, a context item expression raises a dynamic error [err:XPDY0002].

3.1.5 Function Calls

[Definition: The built-in functions supported by XQuery are defined in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators].] Additional functions may be declared in a Prolog, imported from a library module, or provided by the external environment as part of the static context.

A function call consists of a QName followed by a parenthesized list of zero or more expressions, called arguments. If the QName in the function call has no namespace prefix, it is considered to be in the default function namespace.

If the expanded QName and number of arguments in a function call do not match the name and arity of a function signature in the static context, a static error is raised [err:XPST0017].

A function call is evaluated as follows:

1. Argument expressions are evaluated, producing argument values. The order of argument evaluation is implementation-dependent and a function need not evaluate an argument if the function can evaluate its body without evaluating that argument.

2. Each argument value is converted by applying the function conversion rules listed below.

3. If the function is a built-in function, it is evaluated using the converted argument values. The result is either an instance of the function's declared return type or a dynamic error. Errors raised by built-in functions are defined in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators].

4. If the function is a user-declared function, the converted argument values are bound to the formal parameters of the function, and the function body is evaluated. The value returned by the function body is then converted to the declared return type of the function by applying the function conversion rules.

   When a converted argument value is bound to a function parameter, the argument value retains its most specific dynamic type, even though this type may be derived from the type of the formal parameter. For example, a function with a parameter $p of type xs:decimal can be invoked with an argument of type xs:integer, which is derived from xs:decimal. During the processing of this function invocation, the dynamic type of $p inside the body of the function is considered to be xs:integer. Similarly, the value returned by a function retains its most specific type, which may be derived from the declared return type of the function. For example, a function that has a declared return type of xs:decimal may in fact return a value of dynamic type xs:integer.

   During evaluation of a function body, the static context and dynamic context for expression evaluation are defined by the module in which the function is declared, which is not necessarily the same as the module in which the function is called. For example, the variables in scope while evaluating a function body are defined by in-scope variables of the module that declares the function rather than the module in which the function is called. During evaluation of a function body, the focus (context item, context position, and context size) is undefined, except where it is defined by some expression inside the function body.

The function conversion rules are used to convert an argument value or a return value to its expected type; that is, to the declared type of the function parameter or return. The expected type is expressed as a sequence type. The function conversion rules are applied to a given value as follows:

• If the expected type is a sequence of an atomic type (possibly with an occurrence indicator *, +, or ?), the following conversions are applied:

  1. Atomization is applied to the given value, resulting in a sequence of atomic values.

  2. Each item in the atomic sequence that is of type xdt:untypedAtomic is cast to the expected atomic type. For built-in functions where the expected type is specified as numeric, arguments of type xdt:untypedAtomic are cast to xs:double.

  3. For each numeric item in the atomic sequence that can be promoted to the expected atomic type using numeric promotion as described in B.1 Type Promotion, the promotion is done.

  4. For each item of type xs:anyURI in the atomic sequence that can be promoted to the expected atomic type using URI promotion as described in B.1 Type Promotion, the promotion is done.

• If, after the above conversions, the resulting value does not match the expected type according to the rules for SequenceType Matching, a type error is raised [err:XPTY0004]. If the function call takes place in a module other than the module in which the function is defined, this rule must be satisfied in both the module where the function is called and the module where the function is defined (the test is repeated because the two modules may have different in-scope schema definitions.) Note that the rules for SequenceType Matching permit a value of a derived type to be substituted for a value of its base type.

Since the arguments of a function call are separated by commas, any argument expression that contains a top-level comma operator must be enclosed in parentheses. Here are some illustrative examples of function calls:

• my:three-argument-function(1, 2, 3) denotes a function call with three arguments.

• my:two-argument-function((1, 2), 3) denotes a function call with two arguments, the first of which is a sequence of two values.

• my:two-argument-function(1, ()) denotes a function call with two arguments, the second of which is an empty sequence.

• my:one-argument-function((1, 2, 3)) denotes a function call with one argument that is a sequence of three values.

• my:one-argument-function(( )) denotes a function call with one argument that is an empty sequence.

• my:zero-argument-function( ) denotes a function call with zero arguments.

3.2.1 Steps

[Definition: A step is a part of a path expression that generates a sequence of items and then filters the sequence by zero or more predicates. The value of the step consists of those items that satisfy the predicates. A step may be either an axis step or a filter expression.] Filter expressions are described in 3.3.2 Filter Expressions.

[Definition: An axis step returns a sequence of nodes that are reachable from the context node via a specified axis. Such a step has two parts: an axis, which defines the "direction of movement" for the step, and a node test, which selects nodes based on their kind, name, and/or type annotation.] If the context item is a node, an axis step returns a sequence of zero or more nodes; otherwise, a type error is raised [err:XPTY0020]. If ordering mode is ordered, the resulting node sequence is returned in document order; otherwise it is returned in implementation-dependent order. An axis step may be either a forward step or a reverse step, followed by zero or more predicates.

In the abbreviated syntax for a step, the axis can be omitted and other shorthand notations can be used as described in 3.2.4 Abbreviated Syntax.

The unabbreviated syntax for an axis step consists of the axis name and node test separated by a double colon. The result of the step consists of the nodes reachable from the context node via the specified axis that have the node kind, name, and/or type annotation specified by the node test. For example, the step child::para selects the para element children of the context node: child is the name of the axis, and para is the name of the element nodes to be selected on this axis. The available axes are described in 3.2.1.1 Axes. The available node tests are described in 3.2.1.2 Node Tests. Examples of steps are provided in 3.2.3 Unabbreviated Syntax and 3.2.4 Abbreviated Syntax.

3.2.2 Predicates

[Definition: A predicate consists of an expression, called a predicate expression, enclosed in square brackets. A predicate serves to filter a sequence, retaining some items and discarding others.] For each item in the sequence to be filtered, the predicate expression is evaluated using an inner focus derived from that item, as described in 2.1.2 Dynamic Context. The result of the predicate expression is coerced to a xs:boolean value, called the predicate truth value, as described below. Those items for which the predicate truth value is true are retained, and those for which the predicate truth value is false are discarded.

The predicate truth value is derived by applying the following rules, in order:

1. If the value of the predicate expression is a singleton atomic value of a numeric type or derived from a numeric type, the predicate truth value is true if the value of the predicate expression is equal (by the eq operator) to the context position, and is false otherwise. [Definition: A predicate whose predicate expression returns a numeric type is called a numeric predicate.]

   Note:

   In a region of a query where ordering mode is unordered, the result of a numeric predicate is nondeterministic, as explained in 3.9 Ordered and Unordered Expressions.

2. Otherwise, the predicate truth value is the effective boolean value of the predicate expression.

Here are some examples of axis steps that contain predicates:

• This example selects the second chapter element that is a child of the context node:

  child::chapter[2]
  

• This example selects all the descendants of the context node that are elements named "toy" and whose color attribute has the value "red":

  descendant::toy[attribute::color = "red"]
  

• This example selects all the employee children of the context node that have both a secretary child element and an assistant child element:

  child::employee[secretary][assistant]
  

When using predicates with a sequence of nodes selected using a reverse axis, it is important to remember that the the context positions for such a sequence are assigned in reverse document order. For example, preceding::foo[1] returns the first qualifying foo element in reverse document order, because the predicate is part of an axis step using a reverse axis. By contrast, (preceding::foo)[1] returns the first qualifying foo element in document order, because the parentheses cause (preceding::foo) to be parsed as a primary expression in which context positions are assigned in document order. Similarly, ancestor::*[1] returns the nearest ancestor element, because the ancestor axis is a reverse axis, whereas (ancestor::*)[1] returns the root element (first ancestor in document order).

3.2.3 Unabbreviated Syntax

This section provides a number of examples of path expressions in which the axis is explicitly specified in each step. The syntax used in these examples is called the unabbreviated syntax. In many common cases, it is possible to write path expressions more concisely using an abbreviated syntax, as explained in 3.2.4 Abbreviated Syntax.

• child::para selects the para element children of the context node

• child::* selects all element children of the context node

• child::text() selects all text node children of the context node

• child::node() selects all the children of the context node. Note that no attribute nodes are returned, because attributes are not children.

• attribute::name selects the name attribute of the context node

• attribute::* selects all the attributes of the context node

• parent::node() selects the parent of the context node. If the context node is an attribute node, this expression returns the element node (if any) to which the attribute node is attached.

• descendant::para selects the para element descendants of the context node

• ancestor::div selects all div ancestors of the context node

• ancestor-or-self::div selects the div ancestors of the context node and, if the context node is a div element, the context node as well

• descendant-or-self::para selects the para element descendants of the context node and, if the context node is a para element, the context node as well

• self::para selects the context node if it is a para element, and otherwise returns an empty sequence

• child::chapter/descendant::para selects the para element descendants of the chapter element children of the context node

• child::*/child::para selects all para grandchildren of the context node

• / selects the root of the tree that contains the context node, but raises a dynamic error if this root is not a document node

• /descendant::para selects all the para elements in the same document as the context node

• /descendant::list/child::member selects all the member elements that have a list parent and that are in the same document as the context node

• child::para[fn:position() = 1] selects the first para child of the context node

• child::para[fn:position() = fn:last()] selects the last para child of the context node

• child::para[fn:position() = fn:last()-1] selects the last but one para child of the context node

• child::para[fn:position() > 1] selects all the para children of the context node other than the first para child of the context node

• following-sibling::chapter[fn:position() = 1]selects the next chapter sibling of the context node

• preceding-sibling::chapter[fn:position() = 1]selects the previous chapter sibling of the context node

• /descendant::figure[fn:position() = 42] selects the forty-second figure element in the document containing the context node

• /child::book/child::chapter[fn:position() = 5]/child::section[fn:position() = 2] selects the second section of the fifth chapter of the book whose parent is the document node that contains the context node

• child::para[attribute::type eq "warning"]selects all para children of the context node that have a type attribute with value warning

• child::para[attribute::type eq 'warning'][fn:position() = 5]selects the fifth para child of the context node that has a type attribute with value warning

• child::para[fn:position() = 5][attribute::type eq "warning"]selects the fifth para child of the context node if that child has a type attribute with value warning

• child::chapter[child::title = 'Introduction']selects the chapter children of the context node that have one or more title children whose typed value is equal to the string Introduction

• child::chapter[child::title] selects the chapter children of the context node that have one or more title children

• child::*[self::chapter or self::appendix] selects the chapter and appendix children of the context node

• child::*[self::chapter or self::appendix][fn:position() = fn:last()] selects the last chapter or appendix child of the context node

3.2.4 Abbreviated Syntax

The abbreviated syntax permits the following abbreviations:

1. The attribute axis attribute:: can be abbreviated by @. For example, a path expression para[@type="warning"] is short for child::para[attribute::type="warning"] and so selects para children with a type attribute with value equal to warning.

2. If the axis name is omitted from an axis step, the default axis is child unless the axis step contains an AttributeTest; in that case, the default axis is attribute. For example, the path expression section/para is an abbreviation for child::section/child::para, and the path expression section/@id is an abbreviation for child::section/attribute::id. Similarly, section/attribute(id) is an abbreviation for child::section/attribute::attribute(id). Note that the latter expression contains both an axis specification and a node test.

3. Each non-initial occurrence of // is effectively replaced by /descendant-or-self::node()/ during processing of a path expression. For example, div1//para is short for child::div1/descendant-or-self::node()/child::para and so will select all para descendants of div1 children.

   Note:

   The path expression //para[1] does not mean the same as the path expression /descendant::para[1]. The latter selects the first descendant para element; the former selects all descendant para elements that are the first para children of their respective parents.

4. A step consisting of .. is short for parent::node(). For example, ../title is short for parent::node()/child::title and so will select the title children of the parent of the context node.

   Note:

   The expression ., known as a context item expression, is a primary expression, and is described in 3.1.4 Context Item Expression.

Here are some examples of path expressions that use the abbreviated syntax:

• para selects the para element children of the context node

• * selects all element children of the context node

• text() selects all text node children of the context node

• @name selects the name attribute of the context node

• @* selects all the attributes of the context node

• para[1] selects the first para child of the context node

• para[fn:last()] selects the last para child of the context node

• */para selects all para grandchildren of the context node

• /book/chapter[5]/section[2] selects the second section of the fifth chapter of the book whose parent is the document node that contains the context node

• chapter//para selects the para element descendants of the chapter element children of the context node

• //para selects all the para descendants of the root document node and thus selects all para elements in the same document as the context node

• //@version selects all the version attribute nodes that are in the same document as the context node

• //list/member selects all the member elements in the same document as the context node that have a list parent

• .//para selects the para element descendants of the context node

• .. selects the parent of the context node

• ../@lang selects the lang attribute of the parent of the context node

• para[@type="warning"] selects all para children of the context node that have a type attribute with value warning

• para[@type="warning"][5] selects the fifth para child of the context node that has a type attribute with value warning

• para[5][@type="warning"] selects the fifth para child of the context node if that child has a type attribute with value warning

• chapter[title="Introduction"] selects the chapter children of the context node that have one or more title children whose typed value is equal to the string Introduction

• chapter[title] selects the chapter children of the context node that have one or more title children

• employee[@secretary and @assistant] selects all the employee children of the context node that have both a secretary attribute and an assistant attribute

• book/(chapter|appendix)/section selects every section element that has a parent that is either a chapter or an appendix element, that in turn is a child of a book element that is a child of the context node.

• If E is any expression that returns a sequence of nodes, then the expression E/. returns the same nodes in document order, with duplicates eliminated based on node identity.

3.3.1 Constructing Sequences

[Definition: One way to construct a sequence is by using the comma operator, which evaluates each of its operands and concatenates the resulting sequences, in order, into a single result sequence.] Empty parentheses can be used to denote an empty sequence.

A sequence may contain duplicate atomic values or nodes, but a sequence is never an item in another sequence. When a new sequence is created by concatenating two or more input sequences, the new sequence contains all the items of the input sequences and its length is the sum of the lengths of the input sequences.

Here are some examples of expressions that construct sequences:

• The result of this expression is a sequence of five integers:

  (10, 1, 2, 3, 4)
  

• This expression combines four sequences of length one, two, zero, and two, respectively, into a single sequence of length five. The result of this expression is the sequence 10, 1, 2, 3, 4.

  (10, (1, 2), (), (3, 4))
  

• The result of this expression is a sequence containing all salary children of the context node followed by all bonus children.

  (salary, bonus)
  

• Assuming that $price is bound to the value 10.50, the result of this expression is the sequence 10.50, 10.50.

  ($price, $price)
  

A range expression can be used to construct a sequence of consecutive integers. Each of the operands of the to operator is converted as though it was an argument of a function with the expected parameter type xs:integer?. If either operand is an empty sequence, or if the integer derived from the first operand is greater than the integer derived from the second operand, the result of the range expression is an empty sequence. If the two operands convert to the same integer, the result of the range expression is that integer. Otherwise, the result is a sequence containing the two integer operands and every integer between the two operands, in increasing order.

• This example uses a range expression as one operand in constructing a sequence. It evaluates to the sequence 10, 1, 2, 3, 4.

  (10, 1 to 4)
  

• This example constructs a sequence of length one containing the single integer 10.

  10 to 10
  

• The result of this example is a sequence of length zero.

  15 to 10
  

• This example uses the fn:reverse function to construct a sequence of six integers in decreasing order. It evaluates to the sequence 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10.

  fn:reverse(10 to 15)
  

3.3.2 Filter Expressions

[Definition: A filter expression consists simply of a primary expression followed by zero or more predicates. The result of the filter expression consists of all the items returned by the primary expression for which all the predicates are true.] If no predicates are specified, the result is simply the result of the primary expression. The ordering of the items returned by a filter expression is the same as their order in the result of the primary expression. Context positions are assigned to items based on their ordinal position in the result sequence. The first context position is 1.

Here are some examples of filter expressions:

• Given a sequence of products in a variable, return only those products whose price is greater than 100.

  $products[price gt 100]
  

• List all the integers from 1 to 100 that are divisible by 5. (See 3.3.1 Constructing Sequences for an explanation of the to operator.)

  (1 to 100)[. mod 5 eq 0]
  

• The result of the following expression is the integer 25:

  (21 to 29)[5]
  

• The following example illustrates the use of a filter expression as a step in a path expression. It returns the last chapter or appendix within the book bound to variable $book:

  $book/(chapter | appendix)[fn:last()]
  

• The following example also illustrates the use of a filter expression as a step in a path expression. It returns the element node within the specified document whose ID value is tiger:

  fn:doc("zoo.xml")/fn:id('tiger')
  

3.3.3 Combining Node Sequences

XQuery provides the following operators for combining sequences of nodes:

• The union and | operators are equivalent. They take two node sequences as operands and return a sequence containing all the nodes that occur in either of the operands.

• The intersect operator takes two node sequences as operands and returns a sequence containing all the nodes that occur in both operands.

• The except operator takes two node sequences as operands and returns a sequence containing all the nodes that occur in the first operand but not in the second operand.

All these operators eliminate duplicate nodes from their result sequences based on node identity. If ordering mode is ordered, the resulting sequence is returned in document order; otherwise it is returned in implementation-dependent order.

If an operand of union, intersect, or except contains an item that is not a node, a type error is raised [err:XPTY0004].

Here are some examples of expressions that combine sequences. Assume the existence of three element nodes that we will refer to by symbolic names A, B, and C. Assume that the variables $seq1, $seq2 and $seq3 are bound to the following sequences of these nodes:

• $seq1 is bound to (A, B)

• $seq2 is bound to (A, B)

• $seq3 is bound to (B, C)

Then:

• $seq1 union $seq2 evaluates to the sequence (A, B).

• $seq2 union $seq3 evaluates to the sequence (A, B, C).

• $seq1 intersect $seq2 evaluates to the sequence (A, B).

• $seq2 intersect $seq3 evaluates to the sequence containing B only.

• $seq1 except $seq2 evaluates to the empty sequence.

• $seq2 except $seq3 evaluates to the sequence containing A only.

In addition to the sequence operators described here, [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators] includes functions for indexed access to items or sub-sequences of a sequence, for indexed insertion or removal of items in a sequence, and for removing duplicate items from a sequence.

3.5.1 Value Comparisons

The value comparison operators are eq, ne, lt, le, gt, and ge. Value comparisons are used for comparing single values.

The first step in evaluating a value comparison is to evaluate its operands. The order in which the operands are evaluated is implementation-dependent. Each operand is evaluated by applying the following steps, in order:

1. Atomization is applied to the operand. The result of this operation is called the atomized operand.

2. If the atomized operand is an empty sequence, the result of the value comparison is an empty sequence, and the implementation need not evaluate the other operand or apply the operator. However, an implementation may choose to evaluate the other operand in order to determine whether it raises an error.

3. If the atomized operand is a sequence of length greater than one, a type error is raised [err:XPTY0004].

4. If the atomized operand is of type xdt:untypedAtomic, it is cast to xs:string.

   Note:

   The purpose of this rule is to make value comparisons transitive. Users should be aware that the general comparison operators have a different rule for casting of xdt:untypedAtomic operands. Users should also be aware that transitivity of value comparisons may be compromised by loss of precision during type conversion (for example, two xs:integer values that differ slightly may both be considered equal to the same xs:float value because xs:float has less precision than xs:integer).

After evaluation of the operands, if the types of the operands are a valid combination for the given operator, the operator is applied to the operands. The combinations of atomic types that are accepted by the various value comparison operators, and their respective result types, are listed in B.2 Operator Mapping together with the operator functions that define the semantics of the operator for each type combination. The definitions of the operator functions are found in [XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators].

Informally, if both atomized operands consist of exactly one atomic value, then the result of the comparison is true if the value of the first operand is (equal, not equal, less than, less than or equal, greater than, greater than or equal) to the value of the second operand; otherwise the result of the comparison is false.

If the types of the operands, after evaluation, are not a valid combination for the given operator, according to the rules in B.2 Operator Mapping, a type error is raised [err:XPTY0004].

Here are some examples of value comparisons:

• The following comparison atomizes the node(s) that are returned by the expression $book/author. The comparison is true only if the result of atomization is the value "Kennedy" as an instance of xs:string or xdt:untypedAtomic. If the result of atomization is an empty sequence, the result of the comparison is an empty sequence. If the result of atomization is a sequence containing more than one value, a type error is raised [err:XPTY0004].

  $book1/author eq "Kennedy"
  

• The following path expression contains a predicate that selects products whose weight is greater than 100. For any product that does not have a weight subelement, the value of the predicate is the empty sequence, and the product is not selected:

  //product[weight gt 100]
  

• The following comparisons are true because, in each case, the two constructed nodes have the same value after atomization, even though they have different identities and/or names:

  <a>5</a> eq <a>5</a>
  

  <a>5</a> eq <b>5</b>
  

• The following comparison is true if my:hatsize and my:shoesize are both user-defined types that are derived by restriction from a primitive numeric type:

  my:hatsize(5) eq my:shoesize(5)
  

3.5.2 General Comparisons

The general comparison operators are =, !=, <, <=, >, and >=. General comparisons are existentially quantified comparisons that may be applied to operand sequences of any length. The result of a general comparison that does not raise an error is always true or false.

A general comparison is evaluated by applying the following rules, in order:

1. Atomization is applied to each operand. After atomization, each operand is a sequence of atomic values.

2. The result of the comparison is true if and only if there is a pair of atomic values, one in the first operand sequence and the other in the second operand sequence, that have the required magnitude relationship. Otherwise the result of the comparison is false. The magnitude relationship between two atomic values is determined by applying the following rules. If a cast operation called for by these rules is not successful, a dynamic error is raised. [err:FORG0001]

   Note:

   The purpose of these rules is to preserve compatibility with XPath 1.0, in which (for example) x < 17 is a numeric comparison if x is an untyped value. Users should be aware that the value comparison operators have different rules for casting of xdt:untypedAtomic operands.

   1. If one of the atomic values is an instance of xdt:untypedAtomic and the other is an instance of a numeric type, then the xdt:untypedAtomic value is cast to the type xs:double.

   2. If one of the atomic values is an instance of xdt:untypedAtomic and the other is an instance of xdt:untypedAtomic or xs:string, then the xdt:untypedAtomic value (or values) is (are) cast to the type xs:string.

   3. If one of the atomic values is an instance of xdt:untypedAtomic and the other is not an instance of xs:string, xdt:untypedAtomic, or any numeric type, then the xdt:untypedAtomic value is cast to the dynamic type of the other value.

   4. After performing the conversions described above, the atomic values are compared using one of the value comparison operators eq, ne, lt, le, gt, or ge, depending on whether the general comparison operator was =, !=, <, <=, >, or >=. The values have the required magnitude relationship if and only if the result of this value comparison is true.

When evaluating a general comparison in which either operand is a sequence of items, an implementation may return true as soon as it finds an item in the first operand and an item in the second operand that have the required magnitude relationship. Similarly, a general comparison may raise a dynamic error as soon as it encounters an error in evaluating either operand, or in comparing a pair of items from the two operands. As a result of these rules, the result of a general comparison is not deterministic in the presence of errors.

Here are some examples of general comparisons:

• The following comparison is true if the typed value of any author subelement of $book1 is "Kennedy" as an instance of xs:string or xdt:untypedAtomic:

  $book1/author = "Kennedy"
  

• The following example contains three general comparisons. The value of the first two comparisons is true, and the value of the third comparison is false. This example illustrates the fact that general comparisons are not transitive.

  (1, 2) = (2, 3)
  (2, 3) = (3, 4)
  (1, 2) = (3, 4)
  

• The following example contains two general comparisons, both of which are true. This example illustrates the fact that the = and != operators are not inverses of each other.

  (1, 2) = (2, 3)
  (1, 2) != (2, 3)
  

• Suppose that $a, $b, and $c are bound to element nodes with type annotation xdt:untypedAtomic, with string values "1", "2", and "2.0" respectively. Then ($a, $b) = ($c, 3.0) returns false, because $b and $c are compared as strings. However, ($a, $b) = ($c, 2.0) returns true, because $b and 2.0 are compared as numbers.

3.5.3 Node Comparisons

Node comparisons are used to compare two nodes, by their identity or by their document order. The result of a node comparison is defined by the following rules:

1. The operands of a node comparison are evaluated in implementation-dependent order.

2. Each operand must be either a single node or an empty sequence; otherwise a type error is raised [err:XPTY0004].

3. If either operand is an empty sequence, the result of the comparison is an empty sequence, and the implementation need not evaluate the other operand or apply the operator. However, an implementation may choose to evaluate the other operand in order to determine whether it raises an error.

4. A comparison with the is operator is true if the two operand nodes have the same identity, and are thus the same node; otherwise it is false. See [XQuery/XPath Data Model (XDM)] for a definition of node identity.

5. A comparison with the << operator returns true if the left operand node precedes the right operand node in document order; otherwise it returns false.

6. A comparison with the >> operator returns true if the left operand node follows the right operand node in document order; otherwise it returns false.

Here are some examples of node comparisons:

• The following comparison is true only if the left and right sides each evaluate to exactly the same single node:

  /books/book[isbn="1558604820"] is /books/book[call="QA76.9 C3845"]
  

• The following comparison is false because each constructed node has its own identity:

  <a>5</a> is <a>5</a>
  

• The following comparison is true only if the node identified by the left side occurs before the node identified by the right side in document order:

  /transactions/purchase[parcel="28-451"] 
     << /transactions/sale[parcel="33-870"]
  

3.12.1 Instance Of

The boolean operator instance of returns true if the value of its first operand matches the SequenceType in its second operand, according to the rules for SequenceType matching; otherwise it returns false. For example:

• 5 instance of xs:integer

  This example returns true because the given value is an instance of the given type.

• 5 instance of xs:decimal

  This example returns true because the given value is an integer literal, and xs:integer is derived by restriction from xs:decimal.

• <a>{5}</a> instance of xs:integer

  This example returns false because the given value is an element rather than an integer.

• (5, 6) instance of xs:integer+

  This example returns true because the given sequence contains two integers, and is a valid instance of the specified type.

• . instance of element()

  This example returns true if the context item is an element node or false if the context item is defined but is not an element node. If the context item is undefined, a dynamic error is raised [err:XPDY0002].

3.12.3 Cast

Occasionally it is necessary to convert a value to a specific datatype. For this purpose, XQuery provides a cast expression that creates a new value of a specific type based on an existing value. A cast expression takes two operands: an input expression and a target type. The type of the input expression is called the input type. The target type must be an atomic type that is in the in-scope schema types and is not xs:NOTATION or xdt:anyAtomicType, optionally followed by the occurrence indicator "?" to denote that an empty sequence is permitted [err:XPST0080]. If the target type has no namespace prefix, it is considered to be in the default element/type namespace. The semantics of the cast expression are as follows: