> Essentially, this interpretation makes it impossible to do any
> conformance testing at all of XSLT processors.
Yes, you are technically correct. The conformance rules in the current XSLT
specification cannot be tested by any automated process. This is more often
a problem with regard to the result tree than the source tree, but it
applies equally to both: the input and output of XSLT are described in
abstract terms rather than concrete terms.
The OASIS conformance testers get round this by saying that in order to test
a processor you need to build a test rig that does the "parsing" and
"serializing" in a well-defined way; but the test rig is not part of the
processor.
Michael Kay
Software AG
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