Re: [xsl] generating a repeatable unique id

["Sebastian Rahtz" <sebastian dot rahtz at computing-services dot oxford dot ac dot uk>]

Michael Beddow writes:
 > the same value for generate-id called on a given node, but is it in fact
 > permissible for the same processor to return a different generated id
 > for the same node on different runs?
sadly, yes
 
 > problems lurking that I'm not prepared for. So far, Xalan has always
 > behaved deterministically, returning the same value for identical nodes
 > in identical contexts over different runs. I was careless enough to
 > assume things were meant to be that way, and I've quite a bit of
 > important code that will break if that assumption ever proves false.

I'd drop that code if I were you. I think you should do your best to
ensure that the documents work seamlessly with as many processors as
possible, so any use of generate-id() outside one transformation seems
unwise. 

I have got myself into this mess by trying to make my TEI stylesheets
work in the same way with a static transform (which can do chunking
and produce multiple files) as with a server-side on-the-fly
transform. I am nearly there, but it has forced me to look at lots of
my code....

A round of applause, please, for the very excellent libxslt and AxKit
packages which make server-side transformation a reality[1] for me.

Sebastian

[1] in a way that Cocoon never was, since I never managed to make
Xalan work with my any of my documents or stylesheets....


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