[wtp-incubator-dev] XPath Content Assistance

[David Carver <d_a_carver@xxxxxxxxx>]

One of the things we are eventually going to need to look into is XPath 
content assistance.   For this I think we need to do an extension point 
that can be used by both the XPath Navigator as well as the XSLT (and 
possible future XQuery) editor.

Since currently there is no standard way to retrieve a list of XPath 
expressions, and with XSLT 2.0 and XQuery you can create your own 
dynamically, we need a pretty generic way to get the list.

So, here is a proposed XML file that could be made into a Extension:

<xpathfunctions version="1.0">
 <xpath type="Nodeset">
     <name>last</name>
     <definition source="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath";>
         Returns a number equal to the context size from the expression 
evaluation context.
     </definition>
     <returns>
        <datatype>number</datatype>
     </returns>
 </xpath>
 <xpath type="Nodeset">
     <name>position</name>
     <definition source="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath";>
         Returns a number equal to the context position from the 
expression evaluation context.
     </definition>
     <returns>
        <datatype>number</datatype>
     </returns>
 </xpath>
 <xpath type="Nodeset">
     <name>count</name>
     <definition source="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath";>
         Returns a number equal to the context position from the 
expression evaluation context.
     </definition>
     <arguments>
       <datatype>nodeset</datatype>
     </arguments>
     <returns>
        <datatype>number</datatype>
     </returns>
 </xpath>
 <xpath type="Nodeset">
     <name>id</name>
     <definition source="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath";>
         The id function selects elements by their unique ID.  It 
returns a node-set.
     </definition>
     <arguments>
          <datatype>object</datatype>
     </arguments>
     <returns>
        <datatype>nodeset</datatype>
     </returns>
 </xpath>
 <xpath type="String">
     <name>concat</name>
     <definition source="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath";>
         The concat returns the concatenation of it's arguments.
     </definition>
     <arguments>
       <datatype>string</datatype>
       <datatype>string</datatype>
       <datatype>string</datatype>
     </arguments>
     <returns>
        <datatype>nodeset</datatype>
     </returns>
 </xpath> 
</xpathfunctions>


Basically, there would be a base definition of the existing XPath 
functions that are supported.  If a particular XSLT processor or even if 
EXSLT needs to be supported, those processor specific extensions can be 
described using the above xml file.

Anyways, tossing this out to stimulate some discussion and content.

Also, dates to keep in mind, Feb 11th is Testing week, Feb 18th is when 
the next milestone is to be declared.

Dave