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+# KDL Query Language Spec
+
+This is loosely based on CSS selectors, but without the web-specific stuff.
+
+## Selection operators
+
+* `a > b`: Selects any `b` element that is a direct child of an `a` element.
+* `a b`: Selects any `b` element that is a _descendant_ of an `a` element.
+* `a + b`: Selects any `b` element that is placed immediately after a sibling `a` element.
+* `a ~ b`: Selects any `b` element that follows an `a` element as a sibling, either immediately or later.
+* `[accessor()]`: Selects any element, filtered by [an accessor](#accessors). (`accessor()` is a placeholder, not an actual accessor)
+* `a[accessor()]`: Selects any `a` element, filtered by an accessor.
+* `[]`: Selects any element (a )
+
+## Matchers
+
+* `top()`: Returns all toplevel children of the current document.
+* `top() > []`: Equivalent to `top()` on its own.
+* `[val()]`: Selects any element with a value.
+* `[val(1)]`: Selects any element with a second value.
+
+Attribute matchers support certain binary operators:
+
+* `[val() = 1]`: Selects any element whose first value is 1.
+* `[prop(name) = 1]`: Selects any element with a property `name` whose value is 1.
+* `[name = 1]`: Equivalent to the above.
+* `[name() = "hi"]`: Selects any element whose _node name_ is "hi". Equivalent to just `hi`, but more useful when using string operators.
+* `[val() != 1]`: Selects any element whose first value exists, and is not 1.
+
+The following operators work with any `val()`, `prop()`, or `name()` values.
+If the value is not of the same type, the operator will always fail ("1" is
+never coerced to 1, and there is no "universal" ordering across all types.):
+
+* `[val() > 1]`: Selects any element whose first value is greater than 1.
+* `[val() >= 1]`: Selects any element whose first value is greater than or equal to 1.
+* `[val() < 1]`: Selects any element whose first value is less than 1.
+* `[val() <= 1]`: Selects any element whose first value is less than or equal to 1.
+
+The following operators work only with string `val()`, `prop()`, or `name()` values. If the value is not a string, the matcher will always fail:
+
+* `[val() ^= "foo"]`: Selects any element whose first value starts with "foo".
+* `[val() $= "foo"]`: Selects any element whose first value ends with "foo".
+* `[val() *= "foo"]`: Selects any element whose first value contains "foo".
+
+## Map Operator
+
+KQL implementations MAY support a "map operator", `=>`, that allows selection
+of specific parts of the selected notes, essentially "mapping" over a
+selector's result set.
+
+Only a single map operator may be used, and it must be the last element in a
+selector string.
+
+The map operator's right hand side is either an [`accessor`](#accessors) on
+its own, or a tuple of accessors, denoted by a comma-separated list wrapped in
+`()` (for example, `(a, b, c)`).
+
+## Accessors
+
+Accessors access/extract specific parts of a node. They are used with the [map
+operator](#map-operator), and have syntactic overlap with some
+[matchers](#matchers).
+
+* `name()`: Returns the name of the node itself.
+* `val(2)`: Returns the third value in a node.
+* `val()`: Equivalent to `val(0)`.
+* `prop(foo)`: Returns the value of the property `foo` in the node.
+* `foo`: Equivalent to `prop(foo)`.
+* `props()`: Returns all properties of the node as an object.
+* `values()`: Returns all values of the node as an array.
+
+## Examples
+
+Given this document:
+
+```kdl
+package {
+    name "foo"
+    version "1.0.0"
+    dependencies platform="windows" {
+        winapi "1.0.0" path="./crates/my-winapi-fork"
+    }
+    dependencies {
+        miette "2.0.0" dev=true
+    }
+}
+```
+
+Then the following queries are valid:
+
+* `package name` -> fetches the `name` node itself
+* `top() > package name` -> fetches the `name` node, guaranteeing that `package` is in the document root.
+* `dependencies` -> deep-fetches both `dependencies` nodes
+* `dependencies[platform]` -> fetches any dependencies nodes with a `platform` prop (just the one, in this case)
+* `dependencies[prop(platform)]` -> Identical to the above. Plain identifiers are equivalent to `prop(<identifier>)`.
+* `dependencies > any()` -> fetches all direct-child nodes of any `dependencies`
+  nodes in the document. In this case, it will fetch both `miette` and
+  `winapi` nodes.
+
+There is an additional `=>` selector (called the "map selector") that MAY be
+implemented, which will allow extracting/selecting arbitrary data _from_
+nodes, instead of returning the nodes themselves:
+
+* `package name => val(0)` -> `["foo"]`. (The `0` is optional if you just want the first `val()`)
+* `dependencies[platform] => platform` -> `["windows"]`
+* `dependencies > [] => (name(), val(), path)` -> `[("winapi", "1.0.0", "./crates/my-winapi-fork"), ("miette", "2.0.0", None)]`
+* `dependencies > [] => (name(), values(), props())` -> `[("winapi", ["1.0.0"], {"platform": "windows"}), ("miette", ["2.0.0"], {"dev": true})]`