[xquery-talk] xquery 3.1 wishlist

[Michael Kay]

IMHO the current distinction between sequences and arrays could eventually be abolished.
> 

Not without dramatic incompatibilities.

The core problem is the equivalence of a singleton sequence and an item. Which is a great benefit in the XML arena, because you don’t have to worry about whether /book/author is returning a sequence or an item. But you can’t do nested sequences/arrays under this model, because if you allow nesting then you need to distinguish [[a]] from [a]. So we have arrays that allow nesting, and sequences where singletons are the same as items, and the two models are irreconcilable.

Michael Kay
Saxonica