Revision [1377]
This is an old revision of Lists made by DavePawson on 2010-05-11 06:10:17.
Plain sequences
Note that 'lists' are really sequences according to the XDM model, but don't let that put you off.
These are lists of items [sequences ] which might be strings for instance. Created with the '(' ... ')' notation. For example
ls=(a b c)
To access the command line parameters from a script, as, say 'xmlsh scriptname a.xml b.xml c.xml
parms=$* for f in $parms do echo $f done
which will produce
a.xml b.xml c.xml on stdout
To retain the list nature of a command output, use the form ($var) e.g.
lst=$(ls) for file in $lst do echo $file done
xml items
To form a 'list' of xml items, use the notation '<[item, item, item]>'
But note that the contents of the list can be any type valid for xml, including content from the current context, e.g.
ls=<[a, "b", //x[3]]>
which adds the content of element a (from the current context), a string "b" and the third x element from the root context.
Note the difference between the two types of list and use the appropriate form
Using variables holding sequences
The rule is
() creates a sequence {} preserves one when calling a function, another script or even calling an initial script.
given a sequence in $x
x=(a b c) y=$x #y is now a list
To call a function with x as a parameter, use
functname param1 param2 {$x} is the required syntaxwhich ensures that the function receives, and can process $x as a sequence.
