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Package overview for net.sf.saxon.functions
This package provides implementations of all the core functions available for use
in XPath expressions. This includes all the functions defined in the XPath 2.0
Functions and Operators specification, as well as the additional functions
defined for use in XSLT. The package also includes Saxon extension functions. Most
of these are in a single class Extensions, but some of the more
complex functions are in their own classes, for example Evaluate implements
saxon:evaluate().
There is one class for group of closely-related functions. These all inherit from the class
net.sf.saxon.expr.Function. The class StandardFunction is used to map a function
name to its implementation; it contains tables of information describing the signature of each
function, so that the type-checking code is completely generic.
The package also contains machinery for defining user extension functions. A collection
of functions is represented by a FunctionLibrary object. There are several
standard function libraries available, covering core functions, Saxon extension functions
constructor functions, and user extension functions: each category is covered by a subclass
of FunctionLibrary, and there is also a FunctionLibraryList that
represents the total collection of functions in these individual libraries. The
JavaExtensionLibrary contains the logic for binding Java extension functions
given their name and arity and the types of their arguments. The class ExtensionFunctionCall
contains the run-time logic for converting XPath values to the required Java types, and for converting
the result back to an XPath value.
These classes, although public, will not normally be used directly by user-written
Java applications.
Michael H. Kay
Saxonica Limited
9 February 2005