..............however going back to my initial question is this the fault of
the XPATH spec or the MS node set,

............. I guess the answer is neither !


What I suppose is needed is a smarter selectNodes() method that returns
distinct roots


roots=xmldom.selectRoots("//RDF:Description[@role:area='US']/ancestor-or-sel
f::*")

        for (i=0;i<roots.length;i++ )
       {
                Response.write(roots.nextNode().xml)
        }

 Regards :)




"rvj" <md@r...> wrote in message
news:#WtgNTUeEHA.712@T......
> OK
>
> I think we have a basic difference of opion between what COULD be returned
> in the nodeset
>
> ... and what IS currently returned
>
> > somebody has to remove node <c> from <a>. No magic here, it's tree, not
> > flat list, if you select node <a>, then .xml property would give you
> > full subtree of <a>.
>
> I dont see any reason why this has to be done by additional coding
> when  it is quite clear what the intent of the XPath ancessor::* is
> - to create a single node subset
>
> > What is weird is the following  code:
> >
> > for (i=0;i<nodes.length;i++ )
> > {
> >    Response.write(nodes.nextNode().xml)
> > }
> >
> > It's too naive as it presumes nodes in the nodelist can't be overlapping
> > as in ancesor::* case - each one node contains immediately preceding one
> > as a child and others as descendants. And the first one - root element
> > contains all nodes in the tree (except document prolog).
> >
>
> Not if take the view that "distinct" root  nodes COULD be returned in the
> nodeset . Looking
> at
>
> http://www.zvon.org/xxl/XPathTutorial/Output/example10.html
>
> its  quite clear what could be returned - a  3 root node nodeset
>
> <BBB/>
> <CCC/>
> <CCC/>
>
> or for http://www.zvon.org/xxl/XPathTutorial/Output/example12.html
>
> its quite clear that two root nodes should be returned
>
>
> <BBB>
>       <CCC/>
> </BBB>
>
> <CCC>
>       <EEE/>
> </CCC>
>
>
> and similarly for ancestors example
>
> http://www.zvon.org/xxl/XPathTutorial/Output/example14.html
>
> a single root node nodeset
>
> <AAA>
>      <BBB>
>           <DDD>
>                 <CCC/>
>          </DDD>
>     </BBB>
> </AAA>
>
>
> Unfortunately the nodeset currently returned makes this unnecessary
> additional task!
>
>
>
>