F-M

FACET (SCHEMA)

A facet is a constraint placed on the values of a simple type in the schema. For example, the pattern facet (not to be confused with XSLT patterns) constrains the value to match a given regular expression, while the maxInclusive facet defines the largest permitted value.

FINAL RESULT TREE (XSLT)

A tree that is constructed by a stylesheet and that acts as an output of the transformation (as distinct from a temporary tree that can be further processed by the transformation).

FOLLOWING AXIS (XPATH)

The following axis selects all the nodes that follow the context node in document order with the exception of attribute and namespace nodes, and the node's own descendants. This is a forwards axis.

FOLLOWING SIBLING AXIS (XPATH)

The following-sibling axis selects all the nodes that follow the context node in document order and that share the same parent node. This is a forwards axis.

FORWARDS AXIS ( XPATH )

An axis containing a sequence of nodes that follow the context node in document order. Within a predicate of an axis step that uses a forwards axis (for example, «following-sibling::x[3] ») , position numbers count the nodes in document order.

FUNCTION ( XPATH )

A procedure that can be called from within an XPath expression; it takes arguments and returns a result. Functions cannot be defined using XPath, only invoked from XPath. A function is either a core function defined in the XPath or XSLT recommendations, or a stylesheet function defined using an <xsl:function> declaration in XSLT, or an extension function provided by the vendor or the user . Functions may also be defined using XQuery. A function has a name (which is a QName ), a signature defining the types expected for its arguments and the return type, and an implementation.

GLOBAL VARIABLE ( XSLT )

A variable defined in a top-level <xsl:variable> element. Global variables are available anywhere in the stylesheet (including in other stylesheet modules ), unless masked by a local variable or range variable of the same name, or a global variable of the same name and higher import precedence.

ID ( XML )

An attribute of type ID has a value that is unique within the document (that is, different from any other ID attribute). It is an ID by virtue of being declared as such in the DTD or Schema. It is guaranteed unique only if the document is valid (XSLT is not constrained to operate only on valid documents). Elements can be accessed using their ID by means of the id() function.

IMPORT PRECEDENCE ( XSLT )

A stylesheet module that is loaded using <xsl:import> has lower import precedence than the stylesheet module doing the importing. The import precedence affects all the top-level declarations in that stylesheet, and is used when deciding which top-level elements to use. For example, if two global variables have the same name, the one with higher import precedence is used.

INITIAL TEMPLATE ( XSLT )

The first template to be evaluated when a stylesheet is activated. This may be defined by nominating a named template from the invoking API, or it may be selected by applying template rules to an initial node supplied in the API (typically, by default, the document node of the principal source document).

IN-SCOPE NAMESPACES ( XPATH )

Any element node has a set of namespace declarations that are in scope for the element: these are represented by the namespace nodes for that element. An XPath expression also has a set of in-scope namespaces in its static context. For XPath expressions in an XSLT stylesheet module, the in-scope namespaces for the expression are the namespaces that are in-scope for the element in the stylesheet that contains the XPath expression, augmented with the namespace defined in the [xsl:] xpath-default-namespace attribute if present. In non-XSLT contexts, it is up to the host environment to define how the static context for an XPath expression is established.

INSTRUCTION ( XSLT )

One of a number of XSLT elements that is permitted to appear directly within a sequence constructor, for example <xsl:variable> , <xsl:choose> , and <xsl:message> . Not all XSLT elements are instructions, for example <xsl:param> and <xsl:when> are not: this is because these can appear in a defined context only.

ITEM (XPATH)

An item is either an atomic value or a node.

ITEM TYPE (THIS BOOK)

An item type describes the type allowed for items within a sequence. This is either item() , which allows any item; empty() , which allows nothing; an atomic type; or a node type. Node types define the kind of node (for example element, attribute, or comment) plus optionally , constraints on the name of the node and on its type annotation, which will always be a schema type.

LEXICAL QNAME ( XPATH )

A QName written in its lexical form: either a simple unprefixed name, or a construct of the form «prefix:local-name » .

See also EXPANDED QNAME (XPATH).

LIST TYPE (SCHEMA)

A simple type that allows a space-separated sequence of values to be written. For example, the type xs:NMTOKENS permits the value "red green blue" . When an element or attribute is annotated with a list type, its typed value in XPath is a sequence containing the individual items.

LITERAL RESULT ELEMENT ( XSLT )

A literal result element is an element appearing within a sequence constructor in a stylesheet that is not an XSLT instruction or an extension instruction. When the sequence constructor is evaluated a new element node is added to the result sequence, and its content (which is also a sequence constructor ) is evaluated to form the content of the newly constructed element.

LOCAL VARIABLE (XSLT)

A variable defined within a sequence constructor. A local variable is accessible only from the following siblings of the <xsl:variable> element that defines the variable, and from their descendants. This is analogous to the normal rule in block-structured programming languages.

MODE (XSLT)

Modes partition the set of template rules in a stylesheet, so that the same nodes can be processed more than once using different rules each time. The mode named on the call of <xsl:apply-templates> must match the mode named on the <xsl:template> element that is invoked.