XML-LINK implementation

[Peter Murray-Rust]

I'm having difficulty understanding the XML-LINK spec section about 
PRECEDING (and implicitly FOLLOWING).  I'd be grateful for guidance from 
those who are TEI experts.

My understanding of PRECEDING is that it can choose from 'the set of all 
elements and strings in the entire document which occur or begin before the 
location source'.  So in the example:

<A ID="A">
  <B ID="B">
    Bstring
  </B>
  <C ID="C">
    Cstring
    <D ID="D"/>
    <E ID="E"/>
    <F ID="F"/>
  </C>
</A>

I'd be grateful to know if I've got these right:

ID(D)PREVIOUS(1) gives 'CString'
ID(D)PREVIOUS(2) fails
ID(F)PREVIOUS(-2) gives <D>

ID(D)PRECEDING(1) gives 'CString'
ID(D)PRECEDING(2) gives <C>...</C>
ID(D)PRECEDING(5) gives <A>...</A>
ID(D)PRECEDING(6) fails
ID(D)PRECEDING(ALL) gives <A> <B> Bstring </B> <C> Cstring
ID(D)PRECEDING(-2) gives <A> <B>

However I can't understand the section beginning 'thus designates the fifth 
element', where it says:
"The location source must have at least as many elder siblings as the absolute
value of the instance number".  By this criterion 
ID(D)PRECEDING(2), (5) (6) and (-2) 
all fail.  I can't see how siblings are important in PRECEDING, since this
is what PREVIOUS is for.

Since FOLLOWING is not perfectly (anti)symmetrical I assume that (ALL) returns
elements which still occurr in document order rather than reversed.

	P.


-- 
Peter Murray-Rust, domestic net connection
Virtual School of Molecular Sciences
http://www.vsms.nottingham.ac.uk/

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