XPath Tutorial

XPath Tutorial
What is XPath?
• XPath is a major element in the XSLT standard.
• XPath can be used to navigate through elements and attributes in an XML document.
 XPath stands for XML Path Language

 XPath uses "path like" syntax to identify and navigate nodes in an XML document
 XPath contains over 200 built-in functions
 XPath is a major element in the XSLT standard
 XPath is a W3C recommendation
XPath Path Expressions
• XPath uses path expressions to select nodes or node-sets in an XML document.
• These path expressions look very much like the path expressions you use with traditional
computer file systems:
XPath Standard Functions

XPath includes over 200 built-in functions.
There are functions for string values, numeric values, booleans, date and time comparison,
node manipulation, sequence manipulation, and much more.
Today XPath expressions can also be used in JavaScript, Java, XML Schema, PHP, Python, C and
C++, and lots of other languages.
XPath is Used in XSLT

XPath is a major element in the XSLT standard.
With XPath knowledge you will be able to take great advantage of your XSLT knowledge.
XPath is a W3C Recommendation

XPath 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation on November 16, 1999.
XPath 2.0 became a W3C Recommendation on January 23, 2007.
XPath 3.0 became a W3C Recommendation on April 8, 2014.

XPath Nodes
XPath Terminology
Nodes
In XPath, there are seven kinds of nodes: element, attribute, text, namespace, processing-instruction, comment, and
document nodes.
XML documents are treated as trees of nodes. The topmost element of the tree is called the root element.
Look at the following XML document:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<bookstore>
<book>
<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
<author>J K. Rowling</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>29.99</price>
</book>
</bookstore>
Example of nodes in the XML document above:
<bookstore> (root element node)
<author>J K. Rowling</author> (element node)
lang="en" (attribute node)

Atomic values
Atomic values are nodes with no children or parent.
Example of atomic values:
J K. Rowling
"en"
Items
Items are atomic values or nodes.
Relationship of Nodes
Parent
Each element and attribute has one parent.
In the following example; the book element is the parent of the title, author, year, and price:
<book>
<title>Harry Potter</title>
<year>2005</year>
</book>
Children
Element nodes may have zero, one or more children.
In the following example; the title, author, year, and price elements are all children of the book element:
<book>
<year>2005</year>
</book>
Siblings
Nodes that have the same parent.
In the following example; the title, author, year, and price elements are all siblings:
<book>
<year>2005</year>
</book>
Ancestors
A node's parent, parent's parent, etc.
In the following example; the ancestors of the title element are the book element and the bookstore element:
<bookstore>
<book>
<year>2005</year>
</book>
</bookstore>
Descendants
A node's children, children's children, etc.
In the following example; descendants of the bookstore element are the book, title, author, year, and price elements:
<bookstore>
<book>
<year>2005</year>
</book>
</bookstore>
XPath Syntax
XPath uses path expressions to select nodes or node-sets in an XML document. The node is selected by following a path or steps.
The XML Example Document

We will use the following XML document in the examples below.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<bookstore>
<book>
<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
</book>
<book>
<title lang="en">Learning XML</title>
</book>
</bookstore>
Selecting 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
In the table below we have listed some path expressions and the result of the expressions:
Path Expression Result

bookstore Selects all nodes with the name "bookstore"
/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 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
Selecting Unknown Nodes

XPath wildcards can be used to select unknown XML nodes.
Wildcard Description
* Matches any element node
@* Matches any attribute node
node() Matches any node of any kind

/bookstore/* Selects all the child element nodes of the bookstore element
//* Selects all elements in the document
//title[@*] Selects all title elements which have at least one attribute of any kind
Selecting Several Paths

By using the | operator in an XPath expression you can select several paths.

//book/title | //book/price Selects all the title AND price elements of all book elements
//title | //price Selects all the title AND price elements in the document
/bookstore/book/title | //price Selects all the title elements of the book element of the bookstore element AND all the price
elements in the document

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XPath Tutorial

 XPath stands for XML Path Language

XPath Standard Functions

XPath is Used in XSLT

XPath is a W3C Recommendation

XPath 2.0 became a W3C Recommendation on January 23, 2007.

XPath 3.0 became a W3C Recommendation on April 8, 2014.

Look at the following XML document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bookstore> (root element node)

<author>J K. Rowling</author> (element node)

lang="en" (attribute node)

Example of atomic values:

The XML Example Document

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Path Expression Result

bookstore/book Selects all book elements that are children of bookstore

Predicates are always embedded in square brackets.

Path Expression Result

Selecting Unknown Nodes

Path Expression Result

Selecting Several Paths

Path Expression Result

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