pc:copy-of

Evaluates an XPath expression and (if the result is a node set) returns a deep copy of all the nodes in the resulting node set. The result can be serialised as output XML or passed to a different directive (Example 3).

Syntax

<pc:copy-of
select="xpath >> (any)" />

The required select attribute is the XPath expression to be evaluated.

The intended use is that the result is a node set. A "deep copy" of this resulting node set is returned. Such a "deep copy" includes all the nodes in the node set and all of these nodes' descendent nodes, attribute nodes and namespace nodes.

If xpath evaluates to a string then this string is returned. If it evaluates to a number or boolean, this value is converted to a string and then returned. In this respect, <pc:copy-of> behaves in the same way as pc:value‑of.

If xpath evaluates to an XML document, then this entire document is copied to the result tree:

<pc:assign-nodeset envxml="{files:XmlFile('env.xml')}"/>
<pc:copy-of select="$envxml"/>

Example 1

<pc:copy-of select="$myvariable"/>

Example 2

<pc:copy-of select="strings:ReplaceVariables($infile, $replacements, 'name', 'value', '')"/>

Example 3

<pc:assign-nodeset mydialog="{.}">
   <Form w="200" h="50" >
      <Title>An empty dialog</Title>
   </Form>
</pc:assign-nodeset>
<pc:Dialog><pc:copy-of select="$mydialog"/></pc:Dialog>