Hi Christian -
That helps enormously; thank you!
I got hung up with the FLOWR expression because
$test update {for $a in $test/descendant::html:ins return ....}
doesn't work and I have yet to establish useful mental patterns for what the
"node was not created by transform expression" error message means.
The terse second version is what I was after; thank you!
-- Graydon
On Sat, Sep 27, 2025, at 02:59, Christian Grün wrote:
> Hi Graydon,
>
> You can use FLWOR expressions also with the update keyword:
>
> <xml><a>A</a></xml> update {
> for $a in ./a
> return replace node $a with $a/node()
> }
>
> A shorter (possibly cryptic) variant is to use the simple map operator (!):
>
> <xml><a>A</a></xml> update {
> a ! (replace node . with node())
> }
>
> Hope this helps,
> Christian
>
>
> *Von:* Graydon Saunders via BaseX-Talk <[email protected]>
> *Gesendet:* Samstag, September 27, 2025 7:33:07 AM
> *An:* BaseX <[email protected]>
> *Betreff:* [basex-talk] replacing elements with their children using update
>
> Hello!
>
> So I can use
>
> copy $c := $test
> modify (for $each in $c/descendant::html:ins return replace node $each with
> $each/node())
> return $c
>
> to unwrap all the html ins elements in some test HTML.
>
> If I try to do this using update (because I am under the perhaps mistaken
> impression that update can do the same things copy/modify/return can)
>
> $test update {replace node descendant::html:ins with 'CABBAGE'}
>
> works fine; the various ins elements are found and replaced. But if I want to
> replace that particular ins element with its children, there doesn't seem to
> be a way to specify the children; the context item is the value of $test, not
> whatever descendant ins element is being replaced.
>
> How could this be written using update? Can this be written using update?
>
> thanks!
>
> --
> Graydon Saunders | [email protected]
> Þæs oferéode, ðisses swá mæg.
> -- Deor ("That passed, so may this.")
>
>
