XPath 3.1 Conformance

Saxon 9.8 implements the final XPath 3.1 Recommendation in its entirety.

New features in XPath 3.0 include the following:

• String contatenation operator ||

• Simple mapping operator !

• Casting is allowed from a string to a union or list type

• Union types, provided they meet certain rules, can be used as a SequenceType

• Dynamic function call (functions are first class values (items) in the data model)

• Function literals, for example substring#2

• Inline functions, for example function($i) {$i*$i}

• Partial application of functions, for example concat('$', ?)

• Let expressions, for example let $v := expr return f($v)

• EQNames (Q{uri}local) wherever QNames are allowed

New features in XPath 3.1 include:

• Support for maps and arrays

• Functions to read and write data in JSON format

• A new operator (=>) to allow function chaining

• Various new functions including random-number-generator(), sort(), parse-ietf-date().