I am fixing this by adding a note to the example:


Solution 2 (using a recursive updating function):

declare updating function 
    local:delete-subtree($p as element(part))
  {
      for $child in doc("part-list.xml")//part
      where $p/@partid eq $child/@partof
      return (
        delete nodes $child,
        local:delete-subtree($child)
      )
  };

for $p in doc("part-list.xml")//part[@name="car"]
return 
  local:delete-subtree($p)


NOTE:

Because this data is not covered by a schema, an implementation that supports static typing will raise an error for the comparison $p/@partid eq $child/@partof. This can be solved by creating a schema for the data and importing it into the query.



Please let me know if this is not sufficient.

Jonathan