Saxon extensions to the W3C XSLT/XQuery specifications

The extension function saxon:serialize() has been enhanced. As an alternative to the existing format, the second argument may now be a (dynamically-constructed) xsl:output element, allowing full access to all serialization properties, and allowing all the properties to be defined dynamically. This works in both XSLT and XQuery.

A new extension function saxon:generate-id() is available. The semantics are identical to the XSLT function generate-id(): the function returns an ASCII alphanumeric string that uniquely identifies the node supplied as the argument (there must always be exactly one argument). This extension function is made available to provide the same capability as generate-id() in non-XSLT environments, for example in XQuery.

The extension functions saxon:max(), saxon:min(), and saxon:sum(), which have long been deprecated, are now dropped from the product.

In the saxon:evaluate() function under XSLT, the default namespace for elements and types is taken from the value of the xpath-default-namespace attribute in the stylesheet, if present. Previously it was taken from the default namespace declared using xmlns="xyz.uri", which was a bug. (In XQuery the net effect is no change, because there is only one default namespace.)

The documentation of other extension functions involving sequences of nodes, such as saxon:leading, has been changed to reflect the fact that the sequences of nodes on which they operate may contain duplicates and might not be in document order. The implementation of these functions has not been changed, the documentation has been corrected to describe the current behavior.