In this post, we’ll look at the commonly used XPath queries. We’ll be using the following XML file as an example
/ : Select Root Element
Using this as XPath query will return the entire document
node : Select nodes
e.g. Using “bookstore” will return the bookstore element node with its children
Using this as XPath query will return the entire document
//node : Select nodes in the document from the current node matching the selection
e.g. Using “//book” will return the root book element nodes irrespective of its position
@ : Select attributes
e.g. Using “//book/@category” will return the category attribute for book nodes (Note // is used to get the book node irrespective of its position)
e.g. Using “//book[@category]” will return the book nodes having category attribute
e.g. Using “//book[@category=“web”]” will return the book nodes with category attribute set to “web”
Examples using Predicates
“//book[1]” will return the first book node
“/bookstore/book[last()]” will return the last book node which is child of bookstore
“/bookstore/book[position() < 3]” will return the first and second book node
”//*” will return all the nodes (complete document i.e. bookstore as one node, then book element, title element and so on)
“//book[@category=“cooking”]/title/text()” will return the text for title element for book with category cooking
“count(//book)” will return the number of book elements