CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xmlxpathattributesxquery
siddarth
siddarth

Reputation: 21

Return first attribute of an element from XML

Consider an XML element as 

<Person>
    <contact phone="123" email="abc" address="abcde">Sid</contact>
    <contact phone="987" email="cba" address="qwerty">Zid</contact>
</Person>

I want an xpath which will print the contact node which has the first attribute="123" regardless of the attribute name. something like /Person/contact[@*[position()=1]="123"]. In this case, it should print "Sid".

Upvotes: 2

Views: 653

Answers (2)

Martin Honnen
Martin Honnen

Reputation: 167696

If you use /contact/@*[1] you might get what you want. Remember however that attributes are not ordered (respectively "The relative order of attribute nodes is implementation-dependent.") so different implementations might return a different attribute for a positional predicate [1] on @*.

The XPath /Person/contact[@* = '123'] might address your edited requirement, as it selects a contact element which has any attribute with value '123'. As already pointed out, you can also use a positional predicate /Person/contact[@*[1] = '123'] but the result can be implementation dependent.

Upvotes: 2

har07
har07

Reputation: 89305

Assuming that you're aware of possible problem caused by relying your logic on order of attribute as mentioned by Martin Honnen, but still want to go this way, you can try the following :

/Person/contact[@*[1][.='123']]

above XPath select <contact> elements having first attribute value equals 123, regardless of the attribute name.

Upvotes: 0

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