Subject: Re: [MarkLogic Dev General] How to add attributes to existingnodesor replace only the attribute of an element - reg.,

[Kelly Stirman]

Wyatt is right - attributes are nodes too. :-)

So, his second example can be simplified to use xdmp:node-insert-child instead of xdmp:node-replace():

let $book := doc("book.xml")/bib/book[1]
return
    xdmp:node-insert-child($book,
        attribute year {2009}
    )

I would combine both operations in an if/then statement:

let $t := doc("book.xml")/bib/book
return 
if($t/@year)
then xdmp:node-replace($t/@year, attribute year {"1999"})
else xdmp:node-insert-child($t, attribute year {"1999"})
 
Wyatt managed to mention all the other node update built ins, so I'm not sure how he overlooked this one. :-) 

Perhaps it is because it isn't obvious that attributes are children of elements, at least not to me. 

(Forgive typos - currently away from my computer)

Kelly

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 08:52:47 -0400
From: Wyatt VanderStucken <marklogic at wylovan.com>
Subject: Re: [MarkLogic Dev General] How to add attributes to existing
nodesor  replace only the attribute of an element - reg.,
To: General Mark Logic Developer Discussion
<general at developer.marklogic.com>
Message-ID: <4A0D659F.6080200 at wylovan.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

An attribute() is also a node(), so xdmp:node-replace() is the right 
function...

Update is really easy...
let $oldYear as attribute() := doc("book.xml")/bib/book[1]/@year,
    $newYear as attribute() := attribute year {2005}
return xdmp:node-replace($oldYear, $newYear)

Adding it initially (since the book element has no other attributes) is 
slightly less straight forward...
let $book := doc("book.xml")/bib/book[1]
return
    xdmp:node-replace($book,
        element book {
            attribute year {2009},
            $book/*
        }
    )

If the book element had other attributes you could use 
xdmp:node-insert-after() or xdmp:node-insert-before().

Regards,
Wyatt