On Sun, 2019-10-06 at 21:28 -0700, thufir wrote:
> Do these have the same meaning? Might there be a subtle distinction,
> or
> might they be read differently but functionally identical?
Are we doing your homework? :-) :-)
//* is the same as /descendant-or-self::*
//book means, search the whole database to find "book" elements.
/*/book meeans make a list of all children of the top-level node, and
find book elements that are children of items in that list.
So, given
<boy><reading><a><book>
</book></a></reading></boy>
//book will find one node, and /*/book won't find any.
> They're equally efficient, at least as used above?
They are doing different things. To measure efficiency, use a much
larger database than the XQuery use cases example :)
You may find Priscilla Walmsley's XQuery book helpful in learning XPath
version 3.
Best,
Liam
--
Liam Quin, https://www.delightfulcomputing.com/
Available for XML/Document/Information Architecture/XSLT/
XSL/XQuery/Web/Text Processing/A11Y training, work & consulting.
Barefoot Web-slave, antique illustrations: http://www.fromoldbooks.org
