Question

Using XPath or a XQuery, how do I select the node with the most occurrences of another node?

For example how do I find the basket which has the most eggs?

<basket name="1">
        <egg></egg>
        <egg></egg>
</basket>
<basket name="2">
        <egg></egg>
</basket>
<basket name="3">
        <egg></egg>
        <egg></egg>
        <egg></egg>
        <egg></egg>
</basket>

Answer 1

This is one solution (TIMTOWTDI):

let $nodes := <xml>
  <basket name="1">
          <egg></egg>
          <egg></egg>
  </basket>
  <basket name="2">
          <egg></egg>
  </basket>
  <basket name="3">
          <egg></egg>
          <egg></egg>
          <egg></egg>
          <egg></egg>
  </basket>
</xml>
let $max := max(for $c in $nodes//basket return count($c/egg))
return $nodes/basket[count(egg) = $max]