Hello, If you need to compose an XPath expression with the runtime value of a parameter of the query then you need what is called a dynamic evaluation of an XPath expression. The standard XQuery language does not provide such an evaluation which seems to be due (some experts say that) to the difficulty of determining the evaluation context. That means you should use an extension function implemented in the specific XQuery engine that runs your queries, for example util:eval() in eXist or saxon:evaluate() in Saxon 9 instead of implementing your own mechanism of dynamic evaluation (your token pre-processor) and this is why Oxygen does not provide such a mechanism. The eXist extension function is explained at: http://demo.exist-db.org/exist/xquery.xml?q=.%2F%2Fsection%2Ftitle[.%20%26%3D%20%27function%20library%27]%20or%20.%2F%2Fpara[.%20%26%3D%20%27function%20library%27]&id=1.3.3#N104A0 Regards, Sorin Paul Ryan wrote:
What you suggest poses a unique problem however because the java would have to know ahead of time (prior to calling xquery) if the string being passed will be used in an evaluation. This limitation with external variables of having to pre-evaluate passed elements is a large hole for us. The middle tier that is passing the query arguments doesn't know what variables will be used for evaluation however the XQuery string/document has this information. To ensure that string variables that need to be evaluated can be evaluated we opted to create a token preprocessor vs. building logic into the java to predetermine if it should evaluate the variable to an element.
As an example parsing the following has this issue:
Exist xquery - xquery version "1.0";
import module namespace util="http://exist-db.org/xquery/util"; declare variable $path as xs:string external;
let $query := concat('for $x in collection()',$path, ' return $x') return util:eval($query)
Desired xquery - xquery version "1.0";
declare variable $path as xs:string external;
for $x in collection()$path return $x
Token syntax for achieving desired xquery- xquery version "1.0";
for $x in collection()${path} return $x
Result of preprocessing on tokens- xquery version "1.0";
for $x in collection()/mypath[@id='myid'] return $x
Our preprocessor handles a little more than is shown but the example above is the general idea behind our preprocessor.
-- Paul Ryan