[Xsltforms-support] confusion over instance() function

SourceForge Headquarters 225 Broadway Suite 1600 San Diego, CA 92101 +1 (858) 422-6466

Hello,

I am still working away and developing my CRUD application with 
XSLForms, the only major issue so far is my forms won't work in IE 6.0. 
I think there is a javascript issue that I've not debugged as yet.

However I have a bit of confusion over the instance() function,  in 
XSLForms it returns the root node of the instance, if this is the 
specification then that is fine but  it seems a bit counter-intuitive as 
'/' and '//' have different meanings in XPath.

In the following example the first 2 'xf:output' elements work, the 
third is invalid, the fourth is valid.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="xsltforms/xsltforms.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>
<html menu="samples" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
            xmlns:sample="http://www.agencexml.com/sample"
      xmlns:xf="http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms"
      xmlns:ajx="http://www.ajaxforms.net/2006/ajx">
    <head>
        <xf:model>
            <xf:instance id="nums">
                <sample:data>
                    <sample:item>2</sample:item>
                    <sample:item>5</sample:item>
                    <sample:item>7</sample:item>
                </sample:data>
            </xf:instance>
            <xf:instance id="letters">
                <sample:data>abcdefg</sample:data>
            </xf:instance>
        </xf:model>
    </head>
    <body>
        <h3>XPath Functions</h3>
        <div id="xformControl">
            <span>
                <input type="checkbox" 
onclick="$('console').style.display = this.checked? 'block' : 'none';" 
checked="checked"/> Debug
            </span>
        </div>
        <xf:output value="instance('nums')/sample:item[last()]">
                    <xf:label>number <b>last</b>()</xf:label>
                </xf:output>
        <xf:output value="sum(instance('nums')/sample:item)">
            <xf:label>number <b>sum a</b></xf:label>
        </xf:output>
        <xf:output value="sum(instance('nums')/sample:data/sample:item)">
            <xf:label>number <b>sum b</b></xf:label>
                </xf:output>
        <xf:output value="instance('letters')">
            <xf:label>letters</xf:label>
                </xf:output>

        <div id="console"/>
    </body>
</html>

If this is correct behaviour then the example from 
http://www.w3schools.com/xforms/xforms_functions.asp(as below) is wrong.

****
instance(string)

An XForms Model can contain more than one instance. This function 
returns the root node of the specified instance data

<xforms:instance id="orderform">
<firstName>John</firstName>
</xforms:instance>

ref="instance('orderform')/firstName"

This example returns a node-set that consists of the firstName element 
node from the instance named "orderform"

****

As a matter of general interest, do you know of many people who have 
used XSLForms in production as yet?

Thanks for your assistance.

-- 
Regards

Stephen Cameron

Data Programmer
Integrated Marine Observing System  (IMOS)
eMarine Information Infrastructure Project
University of Tasmania, Private Bag 21, Hobart, TAS 7001, Australia

Tel: +61 3 6226 8507
Fax: +61 3 6226 2997
Email: ste...@ut...
URL: http://www.imos.org.au/eMII.html