persistent id values?

On Mon, Feb 9, 2026 at 10:48 AM Graydon Saunders via BaseX-Talk <basex-talk at mailman.uni-konstanz.de> wrote: > > Hi! > > I'm loading a document with doc() and doing a bunch of stuff to regenerate id attribute values; I'm using generated ids (from generate-id()) as map keys so I can generate the local, this-element id component and then put them all together from the list of ancestor ids. That works. > > What doesn't work is trying to use those ids to identify the element which should get this newly constructed id value; calling generate-id() again on the same document doesn't give the same answers. (which is to be expected, at least as I understand how generate-id() is defined.) > > I have this vague memory that there's a BaseX function that will produce a stable id, but can't remember what it is called. (Or if it will work when I get the document with doc().) > > Is there such a thing, and if so, what module should I be looking in? > > Thanks! > Graydon

On Mon, Feb 9, 2026, at 11:16, Bridger Dyson-Smith wrote: > Hi Graydon - > > I'm curious to hear other thoughts on this, I recall a struggle with > something similar (wanting persistent access to node identifiers), and > I wound up with a kludge that leveraged `db:node-pre()` and > `db:get-id()`. I *think* trying to make in-database identifiers > persistent would be circular, ie you write the file to the database, > generate the node-id/node-pre values, but exposing those values in the > document would change the document, and.... I'm not sure if I'm > thinking about it clearly or not. Also, now that I think about it, I'm > not entirely sure if the db:node-id/db:get-id is persistent - the > db:node-pre/db:get-pre will change if documents are updated/deleted. > > What about a pre-processing step that ran an identity transform that > added a `generate-id()`'d identifier to your chosen elements, then > adding the document to your db? > > I don't think I answered your question, but I'm curious to learn more. > Best, > Bridger > > PS after adding a document to the database, you could run a process > that updated a map in the `store` main memory using the > db:node-id/db:get-id functions, then you could refer to that? > > PPS Excuse any misunderstanding of the problem. I'm insufficiently > caffeinated today. > > On Mon, Feb 9, 2026 at 10:48 AM Graydon Saunders via BaseX-Talk > <basex-talk at mailman.uni-konstanz.de> wrote: > > > > Hi! > > > > I'm loading a document with doc() and doing a bunch of stuff to regenerate id attribute values; I'm using generated ids (from generate-id()) as map keys so I can generate the local, this-element id component and then put them all together from the list of ancestor ids. That works. > > > > What doesn't work is trying to use those ids to identify the element which should get this newly constructed id value; calling generate-id() again on the same document doesn't give the same answers. (which is to be expected, at least as I understand how generate-id() is defined.) > > > > I have this vague memory that there's a BaseX function that will produce a stable id, but can't remember what it is called. (Or if it will work when I get the document with doc().) > > > > Is there such a thing, and if so, what module should I be looking in? > > > > Thanks! > > Graydon >

wrote: > It's once I want to relate the id back to the document ("this > generated value goes with this id attribute node") that I'm having > trouble. I don't want to use path(); it'd work, but it's not an > efficient approach. (Or at least I don't understand it as efficient.)

Von: Liam R. E. Quin via BaseX-Talk <basex-talk at mailman.uni-konstanz.de> Gesendet: Montag, Februar 9, 2026 11:05:01 PM An: Graydon Saunders via BaseX-Talk <basex-talk at mailman.uni-konstanz.de> Betreff: [basex-talk] Re: persistent id values? On Mon, 09 Feb 2026 11:26:14 -0500 Graydon Saunders via BaseX-Talk <basex-talk at mailman.uni-konstanz.de> wrote: > It's once I want to relate the id back to the document ("this > generated value goes with this id attribute node") that I'm having > trouble. I don't want to use path(); it'd work, but it's not an > efficient approach. (Or at least I don't understand it as efficient.) Yeah, the spec says the value can be used to locate a node, but there doesn’t seem to be a htap() function to go from path to node. So, since XQuery lacks xsl:key :), i build a map of generate-id() values to nodes. But if you need to use it between database queries, yes, attributes. -- Liam Quin: Delightful Computing - Training and Consultancy in XSLT / XML Markup / Typography / CSS / Accessibility / and more... Outreach for the GNU Image Manipulation Program Vintage art digital files - fromoldbooks.org