Andy, et al,

Thank you for your examples (and apologies - I naturally managed to copy/paste the wrong function into my initial email ).

Higher order functions are, sadly, a bit outside of my wheelhouse, so I'm unable to fully appreciate their power and utility. But! happily I could work from your examples and get something that I can almost wrap my head around! Thank you so much!

Here's the final working example for me, I think:
```
declare function local:pb(
  $result as xs:string,
  $node as node()
) {
  concat(
    $result, "/"[$result], name($node),
    $node/@* ! local:atty(.) => string-join("")
  )
};

declare function local:atty(
  $att as attribute()
) as xs:string* {
  "[@" || name($att) || "='" || data($att) || "']"
};

distinct-values(
  $input//* ! fold-left(ancestor-or-self::*, '', local:pb(?, ?))
)
```
Again, I really appreciate the guidance!
Thanks and have a pleasant weekend,
Best,
Bridger


On Fri, Oct 16, 2020 at 1:01 PM Andy Bunce <bunce.andy@gmail.com> wrote:
If you really don't want the leading /

 declare function local:pathbuild($result as xs:string,$this as node()){
   concat(
        $result, '/'[$result], name($this),
        $this/@*! concat("[@" , name(.) , "='" , data(.), "']")=>string-join('')
      )
};

On Fri, 16 Oct 2020 at 17:48, Andy Bunce <bunce.andy@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Bridger,

How about..

declare function local:pathbuild($result as xs:string,$this as node()){
 concat(
        $result, "/" , name($this),
        $this/@*! concat("[@" , name(.) , "='" , data(.), "']")=>string-join('')
      )
};
 
innermost($input//*)!fold-left(ancestor-or-self::*,'',local:pathbuild#2)

/Andy

On Fri, 16 Oct 2020 at 16:29, Bridger Dyson-Smith <bdysonsmith@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all -

I hope you don't mind a question about serializing distinct XPaths. I'm trying to generate some reports for documentation and the available built-in and library functions[1] aren't quite what I need.

The output I'm after is:
test/aaa/bbb[@type="foo"]
test/aaa/bbb[@type="foo"][@enc="bar"]
test/aaa/bbb[@type="bzz"][@enc="bar"]
test/aaa/bbb[@type="qux"][@enc="bar"][@key="yes"][@point="start"]
test/aaa/bbb[@type="qux"][@enc="bar"][@key="yes"][@point="end"]

I have a couple of functions that are getting me close, but I can't quite manage the output strings, and multiple children are causing me trouble (entirely too much like real life). Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I've created a gist[2] with the following example:

Thanks very much for your time and trouble.
Best,
Bridger

```xquery
xquery version "3.1";

declare variable $input :=
  <test>
    <aaa>
      <bbb type="foo">bbb content</bbb>
    </aaa>
    <aaa>
      <bbb type="foo" enc="bar">bbb content</bbb>
    </aaa>
    <aaa>
      <bbb type="bzz" enc="bar">bbb content</bbb>
      <bbb type="qux" enc="bar" key="yes" point="start">bbb content</bbb>
      <bbb type="qux" enc="bar" key="yes" point="end">bbb content</bbb>
    </aaa>
  </test>;
  
declare function local:elem(
  $nodes as node()*
) as xs:string* {
  for $node in $nodes
  return(
    string-join(
      if ($node/@*)
      then (string-join((name($node) || string-join(for $att in $node/@* return local:atty($att))), "/"), local:elem($node/child::*))
      else if ($node/child::*)
           then (for $child in $node/child::* return local:elem($child), local:elem($node/child::*))
           else (name($node) || "/" || local:elem($node/child::*))
    )
  )
};

declare function local:atty(
  $att as attribute()
) as xs:string* {
  "[@" || name($att) || "='" || data($att) || "']"
};


local:e2($input
(:
  this currently returns
  test/aaa/bbb[@type='foo']/
  /
  /aaa/bbb[@type='foo'][@enc='bar']/
  /
  /aaa/bbb[@type='bzz'][@enc='bar']/
  /bbb[@type='qux'][@enc='bar'][@key='yes'][@point='start']/
  /bbb[@type='qux'][@enc='bar'][@key='yes'][@point='end']/
  /

:)
```

[1] fn:path, and the related functions from functx (functx:distinct-element-paths, functx:path-to-node, and functx:path-to-node-with-pos). The functx functions are really close and awesome, but I need to incorporate attributes into my output.