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This draft contains only sections that have differences from the version that it modified.

W3C

XML Path Language (XPath) 4.0 WG Review Draft

W3C Editor's Draft 2 February12 March 2026

This version:
https://qt4cg.org/specifications/xpath-40/
Most recent version of XPath:
https://qt4cg.org/specifications/xpath-40/
Most recent Recommendation of XPath:
https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/REC-xpath-31-20170321/
Editor:
Michael Kay, Saxonica <mike@saxonica.com>

Please check the errata for any errors or issues reported since publication.

See also translations.


Abstract

XPath 4.0 is an expression language that allows the processing of values conforming to the data model defined in [XQuery and XPath Data Model (XDM) 4.0]. The name of the language derives from its most distinctive feature, the path expression, which provides a means of hierarchic addressing of the nodes in an XML tree. As well as modeling the tree structure of XML, the data model also includes atomic items, function items, maps, arrays, and sequences. This version of XPath supports JSON as well as XML, and adds many new functions in [XQuery and XPath Functions and Operators 4.0].

XPath 4.0 is a superset of XPath 3.1. A detailed list of changes made since XPath 3.1 can be found in J Change Log.

Status of this Document

This is a draft prepared by the QT4CG (officially registered in W3C as the XSLT Extensions Community Group). Comments are invited.

Dedication

The publications of this community group are dedicated to our co-chair, Michael Sperberg-McQueen (1954–2024).

Michael was central to the development of XML and many related technologies. He brought a polymathic breadth of knowledge and experience to everything he did. This, combined with his indefatigable curiosity and appetite for learning, made him an invaluable contributor to our project, along with many others. We have lost a brilliant thinker, a patient teacher, and a loyal friend.


A XPath 4.0 Grammar

A.3 Lexical structure

Changes in 4.0  

  1. The rules for tokenization have been largely rewritten. In some cases the revised specification may affect edge cases that were handled in different ways by different 3.1 processors, which could lead to incompatible behavior.   [Issue 327 PR 519 30 May 2023]

This section describes how an XPath 4.0 text is tokenized prior to parsing.

All keywords are case sensitive. Keywords are not reserved—that is, any lexical QName may duplicate a keyword except as noted in A.4 Reserved Function Names.

Tokenizing an input string is a process that follows the following rules:

  • [Definition: An ordinary production rule is a production rule in A.1 EBNF that is not annotated ws:explicit.]

  • [Definition: A literal terminal is a token appearing as a string in quotation marks on the right-hand side of an ordinary production rule.]

    Note:

    Strings that appear in other production rules do not qualify. For example, BracedURILiteral does not quality because it appears only in URIQualifiedName, and "0x" does not qualify because it appears only in HexIntegerLiteral.

    The literal terminals in XPath 4.0 are: !!=#$()*+,...///::::=<<<<===!>=>=?>>>=>>????[@[]{|||}×÷-->ancestorancestor-or-selfandarrayasatattributecastcastablechildcommentdescendantdescendant-or-selfdivdocument-nodeelementelseempty-sequenceenumeqeveryexceptfnfollowingfollowing-or-selffollowing-siblingfollowing-sibling-or-selfforfunctiongegtidivifininstanceintersectisitemitemskeykeysleletltmapmembermodnamespacenamespace-nodenenodeoforotherwisepairsparentprecedingpreceding-or-selfpreceding-sibling-or-selfprocessing-instructionrecordreturnsatisfiesschema-attributeschema-elementselfsometextthentotreatunionvaluevalues

  • [Definition: A variable terminal is an instance of a production rule that is not itself an ordinary production rule but that is named (directly) on the right-hand side of an ordinary production rule.]

    The variable terminals in XPath 4.0 are: BinaryIntegerLiteralDecimalLiteralDoubleLiteralHexIntegerLiteralIntegerLiteralNCNameQNameStringLiteralStringTemplateURIQualifiedNameWildcard

  • [Definition: A complex terminal is a variable terminal whose production rule references, directly or indirectly, an ordinary production rule.]

    The complex terminals in XPath 4.0 are: StringTemplate

    Note:

    The significance of complex terminals is that at one level, a complex terminal is treated as a single token, but internally it may contain arbitrary expressions that must be parsed using the full EBNF grammar.

  • Tokenization is the process of splitting the supplied input string into a sequence of terminals, where each terminal is either a literal terminal or a variable terminal (which may itself be a complex terminal). Tokenization is done by repeating the following steps:

    1. Starting at the current position, skip any whitespace and comments.

    2. If the current position is not the end of the input, then return the longest literal terminal or variable terminal that can be matched starting at the current position, regardless whether this terminal is valid at this point in the grammar. If no such terminal can be identified starting at the current position, or if the terminal that is identified is not a valid continuation of the grammar rules, then a syntax error is reported.

      Note:

      Here are some examples showing the effect of the longest token rule:

      • The expression map{a:b} is a syntax error. Although there is a tokenization of this string that satisfies the grammar (by treating a and b as separate expressions), this tokenization does not satisfy the longest token rule, which requires that a:b is interpreted as a single QName.

      • The expression 10 div3 is a syntax error. The longest token rule requires that this be interpreted as two tokens ("10" and "div3") even though it would be a valid expression if treated as three tokens ("10", "div", and "3").

      • The expression $x-$y is a syntax error. This is interpreted as four tokens, ("$", "x-", "$", and "y").

      Note:

      The lexical production rules for variable terminals have been designed so that there is minimal need for backtracking. For example, if the next terminal starts with "0x", then it can only be either a HexIntegerLiteral or an error; if it starts with "`" (and not with "```") then it can only be a StringTemplate or an error.

      This convention, together with the rules for whitespace separation of tokens (see A.3.2 Terminal Delimitation) means that the longest-token rule does not normally result in any need for backtracking. For example, suppose that a variable terminal has been identified as a StringTemplate by examining its first few characters. If the construct turns out not to be a valid StringTemplate, an error can be reported without first considering whether there is some shorter token that might be returned instead.

  • Tokenization unambiguously identifies the boundaries of the terminals in the input, and this can be achieved without backtracking or lookahead. However, tokenization does not unambiguously classify each terminal. For example, it might identify the string "div" as a terminal, but it does not resolve whether this is the operator symbol div, or an NCName or QName used as a node test or as a variable or function name. Classification of terminals generally requires information about the grammatical context, and in some cases requires lookahead.

    Note:

    Operationally, classification of terminals may be done either in the tokenizer or the parser, or in some combination of the two. For example, according to the EBNF, the expression "parent::x" is made up of three tokens, "parent", "::", and "x". The name "parent" can be classified as an axis name as soon as the following token "::" is recognized, and this might be done either in the tokenizer or in the parser. (Note that whitespace and comments are allowed both before and after "::".)

  • In the case of a complex terminal, identifying the end of the complex terminal typically involves invoking the parser to process any embedded expressions. Tokenization, as described here, is therefore a recursive process. But other implementations are possible.

Note:

Previous versions of this specification included the statement: When tokenizing, the longest possible match that is consistent with the EBNF is used.

Different processors are known to have interpreted this in different ways. One interpretation, for example, was that the expression 10 div-3 should be split into four tokens (10, div, -, 3) on the grounds that any other tokenization would give a result that was inconsistent with the EBNF grammar. Other processors report a syntax error on this example.

This rule has therefore been rewritten in version 4.0. Tokenization is now entirely insensitive to the grammatical context; div-3 is recognized as a single token even though this results in a syntax error. For some implementations this may mean that expressions that were accepted in earlier releases are no longer accepted in 4.0.

A.3.1 Terminal Symbols

IntegerLiteral::=Digits
/* ws: explicit */
HexIntegerLiteral::="0x" HexDigits
/* ws: explicit */
BinaryIntegerLiteral::="0b" BinaryDigits
/* ws: explicit */
DecimalLiteral::=("." Digits) | (Digits "." Digits?)
/* ws: explicit */
DoubleLiteral::=(("." Digits) | (Digits ("." Digits?)?)) [eE] [+-]? Digits
/* ws: explicit */
StringLiteral::=AposStringLiteral | QuotStringLiteral
/* ws: explicit */
AposStringLiteral::="'" (EscapeApos | [^'])* "'"
/* ws: explicit */
QuotStringLiteral::='"' (EscapeQuot | [^"])* '"'
/* ws: explicit */
URIQualifiedName::=BracedURILiteralNCName
/* ws: explicit */
BracedURILiteral::="Q" "{" [^{}]* "}"
/* ws: explicit */
PredefinedEntityRef::="&" ("lt" | "gt" | "amp" | "quot" | "apos") ";"
/* ws: explicit */
EscapeQuot::='""'
/* ws: explicit */
EscapeApos::="''"
/* ws: explicit */
Comment::="(:" (CommentContents | Comment)* ":)"
/* ws: explicit */
/* gn: comments */
CharRef::=[http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#NT-CharRef]XML
/* xgc: xml-version */
QName::=[http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/#NT-QName]Names
/* xgc: xml-version */
NCName::=[http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/#NT-NCName]Names
/* xgc: xml-version */
Char::=[http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#NT-Char]XML
/* xgc: xml-version */

The following symbols are used only in the definition of terminal symbols; they are not terminal symbols in the grammar of A.1 EBNF.

Digits::=DecDigit ((DecDigit | "_")* DecDigit)?
/* ws: explicit */
DecDigit::=[0-9]
/* ws: explicit */
HexDigits::=HexDigit ((HexDigit | "_")* HexDigit)?
/* ws: explicit */
HexDigit::=[0-9a-fA-F]
/* ws: explicit */
BinaryDigits::=BinaryDigit ((BinaryDigit | "_")* BinaryDigit)?
/* ws: explicit */
BinaryDigit::=[01]
/* ws: explicit */
CommentContents::=(Char+ - (Char* ('(:' | ':)') Char*))
/* ws: explicit */

A.3.2 Terminal Delimitation

XPath 4.0 expressions consist of terminal symbols and symbol separators.

Literal and variable terminal symbols are of two kinds: delimiting and non-delimiting.

[Definition: The delimiting terminal symbols are: !!=#$()**:+,-->...///::*:::=<<<<===!>=>=?>>>=>>????[@[]```{{{|||}}}×÷AposStringLiteralBracedURILiteral{<QuotStringLiteral}///StringLiteral ]

[Definition: The non-delimiting terminal symbols are: ancestorancestor-or-selfandarrayasatattributecastcastablechildcommentdescendantdescendant-or-selfdivdocument-nodeelementelseempty-sequenceenumeqeveryexceptfnfollowingfollowing-or-selffollowing-siblingfollowing-sibling-or-selfforfunctiongegtidivifininstanceintersectisitemitemskeykeysleletltmapmembermodnamespacenamespace-nodenenodeoforotherwisepairsparentprecedingpreceding-or-selfpreceding-sibling-or-selfprocessing-instructionrecordreturnsatisfiesschema-attributeschema-elementselfsometextthentotreatunionvaluevaluesBinaryIntegerLiteralDecimalLiteralDoubleLiteralHexIntegerLiteralIntegerLiteralNCNameQNameURIQualifiedName ]

[Definition: Whitespace and Comments function as symbol separators. For the most part, they are not mentioned in the grammar, and may occur between any two terminal symbols mentioned in the grammar, except where that is forbidden by the /* ws: explicit */ annotation in the EBNF, or by the /* xgc: xml-version */ annotation.]

As a consequence of the longest token rule (see A.3 Lexical structure), one or more symbol separators are required between two consecutive terminal symbols T and U (where T precedes U) when any of the following is true:

G Glossary (Non-Normative)

anonymous function

An anonymous function is a function item with no name. Anonymous functions may be created, for example, by evaluating an inline function expression or by partial function application.

application function

Application functions are function definitions written in a host language such as XQuery or XSLT whose syntax and semantics are defined in this family of specifications. Their behavior (including the rules determining the static and dynamic context) follows the rules for such functions in the relevant host language specification.

argument expression

An argument to a function call is either an argument expression or an ArgumentPlaceholder (?); in both cases it may either be supplied positionally, or identified by a name (called a keyword).

arity range

A function definition has an arity range, which is a range of consecutive non-negative integers. If the function definition has M required parameters and N optional parameters, then its arity range is from M to M+N inclusive.

array

An array is a function item that associates a set of positions, represented as positive integer keys, with values.

associated value

The value associated with a given key is called the associated value of the key.

atomic item

An atomic item is a value in the value space of an atomic type, as defined in [XML Schema 1.0] or [XML Schema 1.1].

atomic type

An atomic type is a simple schema type whose {variety}XS11-1 is atomic.

atomization

Atomization of a sequence is defined as the result of invoking the fn:data function, as defined in Section 2.1.4 fn:dataFO.

available documents

Available documents. This is a mapping of strings to document nodes. Each 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.

available item collections

Available collections. This is a mapping of strings to sequences of items. Each string represents the absolute URI of a resource. The sequence of items represents the result of the fn:collection function when that URI is supplied as the argument.

available text resources

Available text resources. This is a mapping of strings to text resources. Each string represents the absolute URI of a resource. The resource is returned by the fn:unparsed-text function when applied to that URI.

available uri collections

Available URI collections. This is a mapping of strings to sequences of URIs. The string represents the absolute URI of a resource which can be interpreted as an aggregation of a number of individual resources each of which has its own URI. The sequence of URIs represents the result of the fn:uri-collection function when that URI is supplied as the argument.

axis step

An axis step returns a sequence of nodes that are reachable from a starting 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 .

binary

In the operator mapping tables, the term binary refers to the types xs:hexBinary and xs:base64Binary.

binding collection

The result of evaluating the binding expression in a for expression is called the binding collection

choice item type

A choice item type defines an item type that is the union of a number of alternatives. For example the type (xs:hexBinary | xs:base64Binary) defines the union of these two primitive atomic types, while the type (map(*) | array(*)) matches any item that is either a map or an array.

coercion rules

The coercion rules are rules used to convert a supplied value to a required type, for example when converting an argument of a function call to the declared type of the function parameter.

collation

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 Section 5.3 Comparison of stringsFO.

comma operator

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.

complex terminal

A complex terminal is a variable terminal whose production rule references, directly or indirectly, an ordinary production rule.

constructor function

The constructor function for a given simple type is used to convert instances of other simple types into the given type. The semantics of the constructor function call T($arg) are defined to be equivalent to the expression $arg cast as T?.

content expression

In an enclosed expression, the optional expression enclosed in curly brackets is called the content expression.

context dependent

A function definition is said to be context dependent if its result depends on the static or dynamic context of its caller. A function definition may be context-dependent for some arities in its arity range, and context-independent for others: for example fn:name#0 is context-dependent while fn:name#1 is context-independent.

context node

When the context value is a single item, it can also be referred to as the context item; when it is a single node, it can also be referred to as the context node.

context position

The context position is the position of the context value within the series of values currently being processed.

context size

The context size is the number of values in the series of values currently being processed.

context value

The context value is the value currently being processed.

current dateTime

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

data model

XPath 4.0 operates on the abstract, logical structure of an XML document or JSON object rather than its surface syntax. This logical structure, known as the data model, is defined in [XQuery and XPath Data Model (XDM) 4.0].

decimal-separator

decimal-separator(M, R) is used to separate the integer part of the number from the fractional part. The default value for both the marker and the rendition is U+002E (FULL STOP, PERIOD, .) .

default calendar

Default calendar. This is the calendar used when formatting dates in human-readable output (for example, by the functions fn:format-date and fn:format-dateTime) if no other calendar is requested. The value is a string.

default collation

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.

default collection

Default collection. This is the sequence of items that would result from calling the fn:collection function with no arguments.

default function namespace

Default function namespace. This is either a namespace URI, or absentDM. The namespace URI, if present, is used for any unprefixed QName appearing in a position where a function name is expected.

default language

Default language. This is the natural language used when creating human-readable output (for example, by the functions fn:format-date and fn:format-integer) if no other language is requested. The value is a language code as defined by the type xs:language.

default namespace for elements and types

Default namespace for elements and types. This is either a namespace URI, or the special value "##any", or absentDM. This indicates how unprefixed QNames are interpreted when they appear in a position where an element name or type name is expected.

default place

Default place. This is a geographical location used to identify the place where events happened (or will happen) when processing dates and times using functions such as fn:format-date, fn:format-dateTime, and fn:civil-timezone, if no other place is specified. It is used when translating timezone offsets to civil timezone names, and when using calendars where the translation from ISO dates/times to a local representation is dependent on geographical location. Possible representations of this information are an ISO country code or an Olson timezone name, but implementations are free to use other representations from which the above information can be derived. The only requirement is that it should uniquely identify a civil timezone, which means that country codes for countries with multiple timezones, such as the United States, are inadequate.

default URI collection

Default URI collection. This is the sequence of URIs that would result from calling the fn:uri-collection function with no arguments.

delimiting terminal symbol

The delimiting terminal symbols are: !!=#$()**:+,-->...///::*:::=<<<<===!>=>=?>>>=>>????[@[]```{{{|||}}}×÷AposStringLiteralBracedURILiteral{<QuotStringLiteral}///StringLiteral

derives from

A schema typeS1 is said to derive fromschema typeS2 if any of the following conditions is true:

digit

digit(M) is a character used in the picture string to represent an optional digit; the default value is U+0023 (NUMBER SIGN, #) .

document order

Informally, document order is the order in which nodes appear in the XML serialization of a document.

dynamically known function definitions

Dynamically known function definitions. This is a set of function definitions. It includes the statically known function definitions as a subset, but may include other function definitions that are not known statically.

dynamic context

The dynamic context of an expression is defined as information that is needed for the dynamic evaluation of an expression, beyond any information that is needed from the static context.

dynamic error

A dynamic error is an error that must be detected during the dynamic evaluation phase and may be detected during the static analysis phase.

dynamic evaluation phase

The dynamic evaluation phase is the phase during which the value of an expression is computed.

dynamic function call

A dynamic function call consists of a base expression that returns the function and a parenthesized list of zero or more arguments (argument expressions or ArgumentPlaceholders).

dynamic function call

A dynamic function call is an expression that is evaluated by calling a function item, which is typically obtained dynamically.

dynamic type

Every value matches one or more sequence types. A value is said to have a dynamic typeT if it matches (or is an instance of) the sequence type T.

effective boolean value

The effective boolean value of a value is defined as the result of applying the fn:boolean function to the value, as defined in Section 7.3.1 fn:booleanFO.

empty sequence

A sequence containing zero items is called an empty sequence.

enclosed expression

An enclosed expression is an instance of the EnclosedExpr production, which allows an optional expression within curly brackets.

entry

Each key / value pair in a map is called an entry.

enumeration type

An EnumerationType accepts a fixed set of string values.

environment variables

Environment variables. This is a mapping from names to values. Both the names and the values are strings. The names are compared using an implementation-defined collation, and are unique under this collation. The set of environment variables is implementation-defined and may be empty.

error value

In addition to its identifying QName, a dynamic error may also carry a descriptive string and one or more additional values called error values.

Executable Base URI

Executable Base URI. This is an absolute URI used to resolve relative URIs during the evaluation of expressions; it is used, for example, to resolve a relative URI supplied to the fn:doc or fn:unparsed-text functions.

expanded QName

An expanded QName is a triple: its components are a prefix, a local name, and a namespace URI. In the case of a name in no namespace, the namespace URI and prefix are both absent. In the case of a name in the default namespace, the prefix is absent.

exponent-separator

exponent-separator(M, R) is used to separate the mantissa from the exponent in scientific notation. The default value for both the marker and the rendition is U+0065 (LATIN SMALL LETTER E, e) .

expression context

The expression context for a given expression consists of all the information that can affect the result of the expression.

external function

External functions can be characterized as functions that are neither part of the processor implementation, nor written in a language whose semantics are under the control of this family of specifications. The semantics of external functions, including any context dependencies, are entirely implementation-defined. In XSLT, external functions are called Section 24.1 Extension Functions XT30.

filter expression

A filter expression is an expression in the form E1[E2]: its effect is to return those items from the value of E1 that satisfy the predicate in E2.

fixed focus

A fixed focus is a focus for an expression that is evaluated once, rather than being applied to a series of values; in a fixed focus, the context value is set to one specific value, the context position is 1, and the context size is 1.

focus

The first three components of the dynamic context (context value, context position, and context size) are called the focus of the expression.

focus function

A focus function is an inline function expression in which the function signature is implicit: the function takes a single argument of type item()* (that is, any value), and binds this to the context value when evaluating the function body, which returns a result of type item()*.

function coercion

Function coercion wraps a function item in a new function whose signature is the same as the expected type. This effectively delays the checking of the argument and return types until the function is called.

function definition

A function definition contains information used to evaluate a static function call, including the name, parameters, and return type of the function.

function item

A function item is an item that can be called using a dynamic function call.

generalized atomic type

A generalized atomic type is an item type whose instances are all atomic items. Generalized atomic types include (a) atomic types, either built-in (for example xs:integer) or imported from a schema, (b) pure union types, either built-in (xs:numeric and xs:error) or imported from a schema, (c) choice item types if their alternatives are all generalized atomic types, and (d) enumeration types.

Gregorian

In the operator mapping tables, the term Gregorian refers to the types xs:gYearMonth, xs:gYear, xs:gMonthDay, xs:gDay, and xs:gMonth.

grouping-separator

grouping-separator(M, R) is used to separate groups of digits (for example as a thousands separator). The default value for both the marker and the rendition is U+002C (COMMA, ,) .

guarded

An expression E is said to be guarded by some governing condition C if evaluation of E is not allowed to fail with a dynamic error except when C applies.

host language

A host language for XPath is any environment that provides capabilities for XPath expressions to be defined and evaluated, and that supplies a static and dynamic context for their evaluation.

ignorable whitespace

Ignorable whitespace consists of any whitespace characters that may occur between terminals, unless these characters occur in the context of a production marked with a ws:explicit annotation, in which case they can occur only where explicitly specified (see A.3.5.2 Explicit Whitespace Handling).

implausible

Certain expressions, while not erroneous, are classified as being implausible, because they achieve no useful effect.

implementation defined

Implementation-defined indicates an aspect that may differ between implementations, but must be specified by the implementer for each particular implementation.

implementation dependent

Implementation-dependent indicates an aspect that may differ between implementations, is not specified by this or any W3C specification, and is not required to be specified by the implementer for any particular implementation.

implicit timezone

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 xs:dayTimeDuration. See Section 3.2.7.3 Timezones XS1-2 or Section 3.3.7 dateTime XS11-2 for the range of valid values of a timezone.

infinity

infinity(R) is the string used to represent the double value infinity (INF); the default value is the string "Infinity"

inline function expression

An inline function expression, when evaluated, creates an anonymous function defined directly in the inline function expression.

in-scope attribute declarations

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).

in-scope element declarations

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).

in-scope named item types

In-scope named item types. This is a mapping from expanded QName to named item types.

in-scope namespaces

The in-scope namespaces property of an element node is a set of namespace bindings, each of which associates a namespace prefix with a URI.

in-scope schema definitions

In-scope schema definitions is a generic term for all the element declarations, attribute declarations, and schema type definitions that are in scope during static analysis of an expression.

in-scope schema type

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 3.5 Schema Types.

in-scope variables

In-scope variables. This is a mapping from expanded QName to type. 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.

item

An item is either an atomic item, a node, or a function item.

item type

An item type is a type that can be expressed using the ItemType syntax, which forms part of the SequenceType syntax. Item types match individual items.

item type designator

An item type designator is a syntactic construct conforming to the grammar rule ItemType. An item type designator is said to designate an item type.

kind test

An alternative form of a node test called a kind test can select nodes based on their kind, name, and type annotation.

lexical QName

A lexical QName is a name that conforms to the syntax of the QName production

literal

A literal is a direct syntactic representation of an atomic item.

literal terminal

A literal terminal is a token appearing as a string in quotation marks on the right-hand side of an ordinary production rule.

map

A map is a function that associates a set of keys with values, resulting in a collection of key / value pairs.

mapping arrow operator

The mapping arrow operator=!> applies a function to each item in a sequence.

may

MAY means that an item is truly optional.

member

The values of an array are called its members.

minus-sign

minus-sign(R) is the string used to mark negative numbers; the default value is U+002D (HYPHEN-MINUS, -) .

must

MUST means that the item is an absolute requirement of the specification.

must not

MUST NOT means that the item is an absolute prohibition of the specification.

named function reference

A named function reference is an expression (written name#arity) which evaluates to a function item, the details of the function item being based on the properties of a function definition in the static context.

named item type

A named item type is an ItemType identified by an expanded QName.

namespace-sensitive

The namespace-sensitive types are xs:QName, xs:NOTATION, types derived by restriction from xs:QName or xs:NOTATION, list types that have a namespace-sensitive item type, and union types with a namespace-sensitive type in their transitive membership.

name test

A node test that consists only of an EQName or a Wildcard is called a name test.

NaN

NaN(R) is the string used to represent the double value NaN (not a number); the default value is the string "NaN"

node

A node is an instance of one of the node kinds defined in Section 5 NodesDM.

node test

A node test is a condition on the name, kind (element, attribute, text, document, comment, or processing instruction), and/or type annotation of a node. A node test determines which nodes contained by an axis are selected by a step.

non-delimiting terminal symbol

The non-delimiting terminal symbols are: ancestorancestor-or-selfandarrayasatattributecastcastablechildcommentdescendantdescendant-or-selfdivdocument-nodeelementelseempty-sequenceenumeqeveryexceptfnfollowingfollowing-or-selffollowing-siblingfollowing-sibling-or-selfforfunctiongegtidivifininstanceintersectisitemitemskeykeysleletltmapmembermodnamespacenamespace-nodenenodeoforotherwisepairsparentprecedingpreceding-or-selfpreceding-sibling-or-selfprocessing-instructionrecordreturnsatisfiesschema-attributeschema-elementselfsometextthentotreatunionvaluevaluesBinaryIntegerLiteralDecimalLiteralDoubleLiteralHexIntegerLiteralIntegerLiteralNCNameQNameURIQualifiedName

numeric

When referring to a type, the term numeric denotes the types xs:integer, xs:decimal, xs:float, and xs:double which are all member types of the built-in union type xs:numeric.

operator function

For each operator and valid combination of operand types, the operator mapping tables specify a result type and an expression that invokes an operator function; the operator function implements the semantics of the operator for the given types.

ordinary production rule

An ordinary production rule is a production rule in A.1 EBNF that is not annotated ws:explicit.

partial function application

A static or dynamic function call is a partial function application if one or more arguments is an ArgumentPlaceholder.

partially applied function

A partially applied function is a function created by partial function application.

path expression

A path expression consists of a series of one or more steps, separated by / or //, and optionally beginning with / or //. A path expression is typically used to locate nodes within trees.

pattern-separator

pattern-separator(M) is a character used to separate positive and negative sub-pictures in a picture string; the default value is U+003B (SEMICOLON, ;) .

percent

percent(M, R) is used to indicate that the number is written as a per-hundred fraction; the default value for both the marker and the rendition is U+0025 (PERCENT SIGN, %) .

per-mille

per-mille(M, R) is used to indicate that the number is written as a per-thousand fraction; the default value for both the marker and the rendition is U+2030 (PER MILLE SIGN, ) .

pipeline operator

The pipeline operator-> evaluates an expression and binds the result to the context value before evaluating another expression.

predicate truth value

The predicate truth value of a value $V is the result of the expression if ($V instance of xs:numeric+) then ($V = position()) else fn:boolean($V).

primary expression

Primary expressions are the basic primitives of the language. They include literals, variable references, context value references, and function calls. A primary expression may also be created by enclosing any expression in parentheses, which is sometimes helpful in controlling the precedence of operators.

principal node kind

Every axis has a principal node kind. If an axis can contain elements, then the principal node kind is element; otherwise, it is the kind of nodes that the axis can contain.

pure union type

A pure union type is a simple type that satisfies the following constraints: (a) {variety}XS11-1 is union, (b) the {facets}XS11-1 property is empty, (c) no type in the transitive membership of the union type has {variety}XS11-1list, and (d) no type in the transitive membership of the union type is a type with {variety}XS11-1union having a non-empty {facets}XS11-1 property

resolve

To resolve a relative URI$rel against a base URI $base is to expand it to an absolute URI, as if by calling the function fn:resolve-uri($rel, $base).

reverse document order

The node ordering that is the reverse of document order is called reverse document order.

same key

Two atomic items K1 and K2 have the same key value if fn:atomic-equal(K1, K2) returns true, as specified in Section 13.2.1 fn:atomic-equalFO

schema type

A schema type is a complex type or simple type as defined in the [XML Schema 1.0] or [XML Schema 1.1] specifications, including built-in types as well as user-defined types.

sequence

A sequence is an ordered collection of zero or more items.

sequence arrow operator

The sequence arrow operator=> applies a function to a supplied sequence.

sequence concatenation

The sequence concatenation of a number of sequences S1, S2, ... Sn is defined to be the sequence formed from the items of S1, followed by the items from S2, and so on, retaining order.

sequence type

A sequence type is a type that can be expressed using the SequenceType syntax. Sequence types are used whenever it is necessary to refer to a type in an XPath 4.0 expression. Since all values are sequences, every value matches one or more sequence types.

sequence type designator

A sequence type designator is a syntactic construct conforming to the grammar rule SequenceType. A sequence type designator is said to designate a sequence type.

SequenceType matching

SequenceType matching compares a value with an expected sequence type.

serialization

Serialization is the process of converting an XDM instance to a sequence of octets (step DM4 in Figure 1.), as described in [XSLT and XQuery Serialization 4.0].

singleton

A sequence containing exactly one item is called a singleton.

singleton focus

A singleton focus is a fixed focus in which the context value is a singleton item.

stable

Document order is stable, which means that the relative order of two nodes will not change during the processing of a given expression, even if this order is implementation-dependent.

statically known collations

Statically known collations. This is an implementation-defined mapping from URI to collation. It defines the names of the collations that are available for use in processing expressions.

statically known decimal formats

Statically known decimal formats. This is a mapping from QNames to decimal formats, with one default format that has no visible name, referred to as the unnamed decimal format. Each format is available for use when formatting numbers using the fn:format-number function.

statically known function definitions

Statically known function definitions. This is a set of function definitions.

statically known namespaces

Statically known namespaces. This is a mapping from prefix to namespace URI that defines all the namespaces that are known during static processing of a given expression.

static analysis phase

The static analysis phase depends on the expression itself and on the static context. The static analysis phase does not depend on input data (other than schemas).

Static Base URI

Static Base URI. This is an absolute URI, used to resolve relative URIs during static analysis.

static context

The static context of an expression is the information that is available during static analysis of the expression, prior to its evaluation.

static error

An error that can be detected during the static analysis phase, and is not a type error, is a static error.

static function call

A static function call consists of an EQName followed by a parenthesized list of zero or more arguments.

static type

The static type of an expression is the best inference that the processor is able to make statically about the type of the result of the expression.

step

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, working from left to right. A step may be either an axis step or a postfix expression.

string value

The string value of a node is a string and can be extracted by applying the Section 2.1.3 fn:stringFO function to the node.

substantively disjoint

Two sequence types are deemed to be substantively disjoint if (a) neither is a subtype of the other (see 3.3.1 Subtypes of Sequence Types) and (b) the only values that are instances of both types are one or more of the following:

  • The empty sequence, ().

  • The empty map, {}.

  • The empty array, [].

substitution group

Substitution groups are defined in Section 2.2.2.2 Element Substitution Group XS1-1 and Section 2.2.2.2 Element Substitution Group XS11-1. 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.

subtype

Given two sequence types or item types, the rules in this section determine if one is a subtype of the other. If a type A is a subtype of type B, it follows that every value matched by A is also matched by B.

subtype substitution

The use of a value that has a dynamic type that is a subtype of the expected type is known as subtype substitution.

symbol

Each rule in the grammar defines one symbol, using the following format:

symbol ::= expression
symbol separators

Whitespace and Comments function as symbol separators. For the most part, they are not mentioned in the grammar, and may occur between any two terminal symbols mentioned in the grammar, except where that is forbidden by the /* ws: explicit */ annotation in the EBNF, or by the /* xgc: xml-version */ annotation.

system function

System functions include the functions defined in [XQuery and XPath Functions and Operators 4.0], functions defined by the specifications of a host language, constructor functions for atomic types, and any additional functions provided by the implementation. System functions are sometimes called built-in functions.

terminal

A terminal is a symbol or string or pattern that can appear in the right-hand side of a rule, but never appears on the left-hand side in the main grammar, although it may appear on the left-hand side of a rule in the grammar for terminals.

type annotation

Each element node and attribute node in an XDM instance has a type annotation (described in Section 2.8 Schema InformationDM). The type annotation of a node is a reference to a schema type.

typed value

The typed value of a node is a sequence of atomic items and can be extracted by applying the Section 2.1.4 fn:dataFO function to the node.

type error

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.

type promotion

Under certain circumstances, an atomic item can be promoted from one type to another.

URI

Within this specification, the term URI refers to a Universal Resource Identifier as defined in [RFC3986] and extended in [RFC3987] with the new name IRI.

value

In the data model, a value is always a sequence.

variable reference

A variable reference is an EQName preceded by a $-sign.

variable terminal

A variable terminal is an instance of a production rule that is not itself an ordinary production rule but that is named (directly) on the right-hand side of an ordinary production rule.

variable values

Variable values. This is a mapping from expanded QName to value. 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.

warning

In addition to static errors, dynamic errors, and type errors, an XPath 4.0 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.

whitespace

A whitespace character is any of the characters defined by [http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#NT-S].

wildcard-matches

In these rules, if MU and NU are NameTestUnions, then MUwildcard-matchesNU is true if every name that matches MU also matches NU.

XDM instance

The term XDM instance is used, synonymously with the term value, to denote an unconstrained sequence of items.

XPath 1.0 compatibility mode

XPath 1.0 compatibility mode.This value is true if rules for backward compatibility with XPath Version 1.0 are in effect; otherwise it is false.

xs:anyAtomicType

xs:anyAtomicType is an atomic type that includes all atomic items (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:decimal and xs:string, have xs:anyAtomicType as their base type.

xs:dayTimeDuration

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

xs:error

xs:error is a simple type with no value space. It is defined in Section 3.16.7.3 xs:error XS11-1 and can be used in the 3.1 Sequence Types to raise errors.

xs:untyped

xs:untyped is used as the type annotation of an element node that has not been validated, or has been validated in skip mode.

xs:untypedAtomic

xs: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.

xs:yearMonthDuration

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

zero-digit

zero-digit(M) is the character used in the picture string to represent the digit zero; the default value is U+0030 (DIGIT ZERO, 0) . This character must be a digit (category Nd in the Unicode property database), and it must have the numeric value zero. This property implicitly defines the ten Unicode characters that are used to represent the values 0 to 9 in the function output: Unicode is organized so that each set of decimal digits forms a contiguous block of characters in numerical sequence. Within the picture string any of these ten character can be used (interchangeably) as a place-holder for a mandatory digit. Within the final result string, these ten characters are used to represent the digits zero to nine.