XPath Syntax
XML Path Language uses a declarative notation rather than a
procedural one. Each expression developed by this notation describes the types
of nodes to match based on the hierarchical relationship between the nodes.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
For
example, the expression "book/author" means find the author element contained
in the book element.
XML Example
One XML document is given below.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?><bookstore><book>
Selecting Nodes
To select nodes XPath uses path expressions. The node is
selected by following a path. The most useful path expressions are:-
Expression
Description
nodename
Selects all child nodes of the node
/
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
Example
Table given below we have listed some path expressions and the
result of the expressions:
Path Expression
Result
bookstore
Selects all the child nodes of the bookstore element
/bookstore
Selects the root element bookstore
Note: If the path starts with a slash ( / ) it always
represents an absolute path to an element!
bookstore/book
Selects all book elements that are children of
bookstore
//book
Selects all book elements no matter where they are in
the document
bookstore//book
Selects all book elements that are descendant of the
bookstore element, no matter where they are under the bookstore element
//@lang
Selects all attributes that are named lang
Predicates
Predicates are used to find a specific node that
contains a value.Predicates are always embedded in
square brackets.
Example
Table given below we have listed some path expressions with predicates and
the result of the expressions:
Path Expression
Result
/bookstore/book[1]
Selects the first book element that is the child of the
bookstore element
/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='eng']
Selects all the title elements that have an attribute
named lang with a value of 'eng'
/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
How we selecting unknown nodes?
Wildcards can be used to select unknown XML elements.
Wildcard
Description
*
Matches any element node
@*
Matches any attribute node
node()
Matches any node of any kind
Example
Table given below we have listed some path expressions and the
result of the expressions:
Path Expression
Result
/bookstore/*
Selects all the child nodes of the bookstore element
//*
Selects all elements in the document
//title[@*]
Selects all title elements which have any attribute
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