matches() function

Hi,

I've been trying to get the matches() function to work in the beta 
release, and to my mind it seems to be broken:

matches("hello world", "hello") returns false
matches("hello world", "hello world") returns true
matches("hello world", "hello.*") returns true

The second string is matched against the *entire* first string

this is different to the behaviour of replace:

replace("hello world", "hello", "goodbye") returns "goodbye world"

<http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery-operators/#func-matches>
 says:
"Unless the metacharacters ^ and $ are used as anchors, the string is 
considered to match the pattern if any substring matches the pattern. 
But if anchors are used, the anchors must match the start/end of the 
string (in string mode), or the start/end of a line (in multiline 
mode)."

This (broken?) behaviour is true on the 
<http://demo.exist-db.org/exist/xquery/xquery.xq> which appears to be 
built on a recent snapshot.

Am I mistaken about the expected behaviour of this function, or is it a 
bug that needs fixing?

Jonathan

Jonathan Miller
Learning Technologies Group
Oxford University Computing Services
13 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6NN. Tel +44 (0)1865 283400
http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery-operators/#func-matches



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