Saxonica.com

Pattern syntax

Saxon supports the full XSLT syntax for patterns. The rules below describe a simplified form of this syntax (for example, it omits the legal but useless pattern '@comment()'):


pattern          ::= path ( '|' path )*
path             ::= anchor? remainder? (Note 1)

anchor           ::= '/' | '//' | id | key
id               ::= 'id' '(' value ')'
key              ::= 'key' '(' literal ',' value ')'
value            ::= literal | variable-reference

remainder        ::= path-part ( sep path-part )* 
sep              ::= '/' | '//'
path-part        ::= node-match predicate+
node-match       ::= kind-match | type-match   
kind-match       ::= element-match | 
                     text-match | 
					 attribute-match | 
					 pi-match | 
					 any-node-match
element-match    ::= 'child::'? ( name | '*' ) 
text-match       ::= 'text' '(' ')' 
attribute-match  ::= ('attribute::' | '@') ( name | '*' ) 
pi-match         ::= 'processing-instruction' '(' literal? ')'
any-node-match   ::= 'node' '(' ')'

type-match       ::= ('element'|'attribute') 
                        '(' ('*'|node-name) (',' type-name) ')'

predicate        ::= '[' ( boolean-expression | 
                           numeric-expression ) ']'

Note 1: not all combinations are allowed. If the anchor is '//' then the remainder is mandatory.

The form of a literal is as defined in expressions; and a predicate is itself a boolean or numeric expression. As with predicates in expressions, a numeric predicate [P] is shorthand for the boolean predicate [position()=P].

Informally, a pattern consists of either a single path or a sequence of paths separated by vertical bars. An element matches the match-pattern if it matches any one of the paths.

A path consists of a sequence of path-parts separated by either "/" or "//". There is an optional separator ("/" or "//") at the start; a "//" has no effect and can be ignored. The last path-part may be an element-match, a text-match, an attribute-match, a pi-match, or a node-match; in practice, a path-part other than the last should be an element-match.

The axis syntax child:: and attribute:: may also be used in patterns, as described in the XSLT specification.