Versions Compared

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

XPath short description

(seehttps://www.w3schools.com/xml/xpath_intro.asp)


Selecting XML nodes

XPath uses path expressions to select nodes in an XML document. The node is selected by following a path or steps. The most useful path expressions are listed below:

Expression

Description

nodename

Selects all nodes with the name "nodename"

/

Selects from the root node

//

Selects nodes in the document from the current node that match the selection no matter where they are

.

Selects the current node

..

Selects the parent of the current node

@

Selects attributes



Predicates

Predicates are used to find a specific node or a node that contains a specific value. Predicates are always embedded in square brackets.
In the table below we have listed some path expressions with predicates and the result of the expressions:




/bookstore/book[1]

Selects the first book element that is the child of the bookstore element.
Note: In IE 5,6,7,8,9 first node is[0], but according to W3C, it is [1]. To solve this problem in IE, set the SelectionLanguage to XPath:In JavaScript: xml.setProperty("SelectionLanguage","XPath");

/bookstore/book[last()]

Selects the last book element that is the child of the bookstore element

/bookstore/book[last()-1]

Selects the last but one book element that is the child of the bookstore element

/bookstore/book[position()<3]

Selects the first two book elements that are children of the bookstore element

//title[@lang]

Selects all the title elements that have an attribute named lang

//title[@lang='en']

Selects all the title elements that have a "lang" attribute with a value of "en"

/bookstore/book[price>35.00]

Selects all the book elements of the bookstore element that have a price element with a value greater than 35.00

/bookstore/book[price>35.00]/title

Selects all the title elements of the book elements of the bookstore element that have a price element with a value greater than 35.00