CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xpath
user1326379
user1326379

Reputation: 170

How to get XPath from an XML?

I have an xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<response>
    <rows>
        <column account="1" name="balibid" seq="1">1</column>
        <column account="1" name="genre" seq="1">Kids</column>
        <column account="1" name="ph" seq="1">3</column>
        <column account="1" name="ph" seq="1">4</column>
        <column account="1" name="ph" seq="1">5</column>
        <column account="1" name="ph" seq="1">6</column>
        <column account="1" name="pl6" seq="1">6</column>
 </rows>
</response>

I need XPath of column name = genre. What should I use?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1113

Answers (3)

Dimitre Novatchev
Dimitre Novatchev

Reputation: 243579

Use (for the particular provided XML document):

/*/*/*[@name = 'genre']

XSLT - based verification:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
 <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>
 <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

 <xsl:template match="/">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*/*[@name = 'genre']"/>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when this transformation is applied on the provided XML document:

<response>
    <rows>
        <column account="1" name="balibid" seq="1">1</column>
        <column account="1" name="genre" seq="1">Kids</column>
        <column account="1" name="ph" seq="1">3</column>
        <column account="1" name="ph" seq="1">4</column>
        <column account="1" name="ph" seq="1">5</column>
        <column account="1" name="ph" seq="1">6</column>
        <column account="1" name="pl6" seq="1">6</column>
 </rows>
</response>

the XPath expression is evaluated and the selected node is copied to the output:

<column account="1" name="genre" seq="1">Kids</column>

Upvotes: 0

MattH
MattH

Reputation: 38265

Using // in XPATH queries leads to unnecessary (and potentially expensive) evaluation, it's how I started (because it's easy), but I'm now trying hard to kick the habit.

Given you've provided a nice, well formed sample. Here are two example XPATH queries:

/response/rows/column[@name="genre"]

And 

rows/column[@name="genre"]

Upvotes: 3

Cylian
Cylian

Reputation: 11181

Try this:

//column[@name='genre']

Upvotes: 0

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