wrap-span [--namespace expression] expression expression expression
This command is very similar to wrap command, except that it works on spans of nodes. It wraps spans (i.e. sequence of adjacent nodes between (and including) a start node and an end node) with a new element whose name is specified as the first argument. Nodes within each span must have the same parent node. The spans to be wrapped are defined by a pair of node-lists in the second and third argument. The first node-list specifies the start node of one or more spans, while the second node-list should contain the corresponding end nodes. The two node-lists must evaluate to the exactly same number of nodes, otherwise a runtime error is reported. The N'th span is then defined as a span starting on the N'th node in the start node-list and ending at the N'th node in the end node-list.
All nodes within the spans are removed from the document and placed into the newly generated elements. The wrapping elements are put back into the document tree at the positions previously occupied by the node-spans.
The command returns a node-list containing the newly created wrapping elements.
xsh $scratch/> $foo := create { "<root>\n<a/><b/>\n<a/><b/>\n<a/><b/>\n</root>" };
xsh $foo/> wrap-span 'span' //a //b;
xsh $foo/> ls /;
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<root>
<span><a/><b/></span>
<span><a/><b/></span>
<span><a/><b/></span>
</root>