The rest of the paragraph that you quote says that temporary trees are described
in more detail in section 9.4, and right at the start of 9.4 it says that the
rules for evaluating the sequence constructor to form the content of the
document node are given in section 5.7.1, Constructing Complex Content (which, I
think, answers your technical question).

I'm happy to try to make the text clearer if I can, but I'm having a little
difficulty seeing how to achieve that in this case. Do you have any concrete
suggestions?

Michael Kay (personal response)

Mike,
   I think that my expectation was that sequence constructor evaluation 
and "coercion" of the resulting sequence into complex content (or simple 
content in other contexts) are conceptually distinct steps.

To be more concrete, I might have made the conceptual leap if the wording had 
been more like

"The content of the variable-binding element is a sequence constructor; a new 
document (referred to as a temporary tree) is constructed with a document node 
having as its children the sequence of nodes that results from evaluating the 
sequence constructor <add>followed by coercion of the constructed sequence to 
complex content according to section 5.7.1.</add>"

A bit of a mouthful, I know.

Thanks.

David Holmes

Following XSL Working Group discussion, I've amended the text in question to read:

"... having as its children the sequence of nodes that results from evaluating
the sequence constructor and then applying the rules given in [5.7.1
Constructing Complex Content]."

I hope that this meets your concerns. In anticipation of your approval I'm
marking the issue as closed, but please feel free to reopen it if you're not
satisfied with the resolution.

Michael Kay
for the XSL Working Group