CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xmlxpath
szymon
szymon

Reputation: 161

How to get node and select children nodes using xpath

I have xml similar to the one below:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<Document>
    <name>SMTH</name>
    <Group>
        <GroupHeader>Some Description</GroupHeader>
        <Port>
            <ID>13553</PortID>
            <Name>Some name</PortName>
            <Number>PO1005</WorldPortNumber>
            <Section>
                <SectionHeader ID="63">General overview</SectionHeader>
                <PAR ID="59341" updatedate="19/05/2010 08:35:51">Important data</PAR>
            </Section>
            <Section>
                <SectionHeader ID="66">Max size</SectionHeader>
                <PAR ID="59344" updatedate="19/05/2010 08:35:51">Important data</PAR>
            </Section>
        </Port>
    </Group>
</Document>

I would like to select all the Port nodes including only ID, Name, Number and PAR children nodes (rest of the children node should be ignored). Result should be just a collection of Port nodes including those 4 children nodes I listed above. Here is what is should look like:

Port:
    ID=234234
    Name=blabla
    Number=324234
    PAR=sdfsdfs
    PAR=fgfgfg
Port:
    ID=5555
    Name=blabla
    Number=ghfh
    PAR=sdfsdfs
    PAR=fgfgfg
...

Many thanks!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 346

Answers (2)

Paul Butcher
Paul Butcher

Reputation: 6956

What you request is impossible to achieve with a single XPath expression.

An XPath expression selects a node or nodeset as it exists in the document. If you use XPath to select a Port element, then that element will be returned to you unmodified, with all of its existing document context, including its parent and children.

You could select each of the descendent elements independently of Port, using a union |, or, you could select each of the Port elements, then with each Port as the context, select only those descendants you want to use (or remove/ignore those descendents you don't want).

How you do this will depend on what you intend to do with the nodes when you have retrieved them. If you wish to produce the example output from the input, then XSLT may be a good choice.

Upvotes: 1

Harriebo
Harriebo

Reputation: 76

Somthing like:

<xsl:for-each select="//Port">
  <xsl:copy-of select="*[name()='ID' or name()='Name' or name()='Number']"></xsl:copy-of>
  <xsl:copy-of select="Section/*[name()='PAR']"></xsl:copy-of>
</xsl:for-each>

Hope that helps. :)

Regards, Harrie

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions