The context in an XPath expression consists of several things:

Context node

The node currently being evaluated.

Context position

A nonzero positive integer that indicates the position of the context node within the set of context nodes.

Context size

A nonzero positive integer that indicates the number of nodes in the current context.

Variable bindings

A set of variables that are in scope for the current context. Each one is represented by a variable name and an object that represents its value. The object might be one of the four XPath datatypes, some additional type defined by an extension, or some other entity.

Functions

A set of functions visible to the current context. Each function is represented by a mapping between a function name and the actual code to be invoked. Each function takes zero or more arguments and returns a single result. XPath defines a number of core functions that are always available; XSLT defines additional functions that go beyond those defined in the XPath specification.

Namespace declarations

The set of namespace declarations visible to the current context. Each one consists of a namespace prefix and the URI with which it is associated.