The specification generate-idis that it will always return the same identifier for the same node and different identifiers for different nodes. So comparing the values โโof generate-idtwo nodes is how you check to see if they are the same node, not just for two nodes that have the same value.
current() " " node - current() ., . node , current() " .".
following-sibling::*[generate-id(preceding-sibling::item[@lcn != ''][1])
= generate-id(current())]
node - item (, for-each). , item :
following-sibling::* --- all the following sibling elements
[ --- such that
generate-id( --- the identity of
preceding-sibling::item[@lcn != ''][1] --- that element nearest preceding
item with a non-empty lcn attribute
)
= --- is the same as
generate-id(current()) --- the identity of the item we started
with
]
, <item lcn="005417714"> () <item lcn="anything-non-empty"> ().
:
<item id="00100687" label="A/161i r" lcn="005417714" notes="A/161-182"/>
<item id="00100688" label="A/161i v" lcn="" notes=""/>
<item id="00100819" label="A/182ii v" lcn="" notes=""/>
<item id="00100820" label="A/182iii r" lcn="" notes=""/>
<item id="00100821" label="A/182iii v" lcn="" notes=""/>
<item id="00100822" label="A/183i r" lcn="005417715" notes="A/183-218"/>
<item id="00100823" label="A/183i v" lcn="" notes=""/>
<item id="00100975" label="A/216iii r" lcn="" notes=""/>
node item id="00100687", 00100688, 00100819, 00100820, 00100821 00100822. 00100822,
following-sibling::*[@lcn = '']
[generate-id(preceding-sibling::item[@lcn != ''][1])
= generate-id(current())]