I don't think we should depart from the standard XPath rules any more than is necessary. Sometimes an XPath author will put [1] after every scalar element as a matter of habit, because it makes the execution of the expression faster ( in some XPath processors ). regards, Tim Kimber, Technical Lead for IBM Integration Bus Healthcare Pack Hursley, UK Internet: kimbert@uk.ibm.com Tel. 01962-816742 Internal tel. 37246742 From: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl@gmail.com> To: "dfdl-wg@ogf.org" <dfdl-wg@ogf.org> Date: 15/10/2014 22:05 Subject: [DFDL-WG] do we allow indexing of non-array, non-optional Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org I don't recall whether we decided this matter or not. I would search for it myself, but I tried and failed to find anything. This is a hard topic to do searching on... no good keywords. If element 'e' has maxOccurs = 1, minOccurs = 1 (or neither are mentioned), is e[1] a valid expression? what about e[../some/pathExp/here]? If element 'e' has minOccurs= 0 maxOccurs = 1, is e[1] a valid expression, or do you access an optional element just by ../e ? Mike Beckerle | OGF DFDL Workgroup Co-Chair | Tresys Technology | www.tresys.com Please note: Contributions to the DFDL Workgroup's email discussions are subject to the OGF Intellectual Property Policy -- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg@ogf.org https://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU