Re: [xml-dev] XPath +/- etc not first class functions

> Two problems with that:
>  (a) it would need syntax extensions rather than just a function library, and

Yes, and this can be dealt with in a new version of XPath

>  (b) operators are polymorphic in a way that functions aren't (which is why we have the long names).

Wasn't the new xs:numeric type defined in XPath 3? AFAIR, it was.

Or do you mean another type of polymorphic behavior here?

Cheers,
Dimitre

On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 3:40 PM, Michael Kay <> wrote:
>
>> On 28 Aug 2017, at 21:57, Dimitre Novatchev <> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 1:47 PM, Michael Kay <> wrote:
>>> Yes: perhaps this could be the shortest EXPath spec ever. Just define a binding of the op prefix to the namespace http://expath.org/ns/operators and you're done.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but the name
>>
>>    op:numeric-add()
>>
>> seems prohibitively-long and inconvenient. Kinda Hungarian notation ...
>>
>> Compare to Haskell' section
>> (https://wiki.haskell.org/Section_of_an_infix_operator):
>>
>> (+)
>>
>> Seems like there is definitely considerable space for improvement
>>
>
>
> Two problems with that: (a) it would need syntax extensions rather than just a function library, and (b) operators are polymorphic in a way that functions aren't (which is why we have the long names).
>
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica



-- 
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
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