Problem selecting a node with XPATH if attribute value contains backslashes - how to force XPATH string to be treated as literal?

[Alastair Cameron]

VB6, MSXML 3.2 installed:

Q1.

I am having a problem selecting nodes with XPATH expressions when an
attribute values contain backslashes (\\) in as part of its value:

For example the following statement fails to find a node (even though one
exists in the XML) if the value of the LDAPServerURL attribute is
\\LocalServer but works if the value is "LocalServer".

Set xmlElement = _

xmlConfigFile.documentElement.selectSingleNode("Fa cility[@LDAPServerURL='" &
<SomeValue> & "']")

I assumed that anything inside the '' was treated as a literal, but XPATH
looks like it is using the backslashes in a XPATH context.

What do I need to do to get anything insde the '<SomeValue>' treated as a
string literal...?

Q2.

Second question: if my attribute values contains embedded single quote (')
or double quotes ("") how do I handle both circumstances when building XPATH
expressions to retrieve them?

Thanks.

Alastair

[SQL Server Development Team [MSFT]]

Please try the following example to access the desired element.
regards
-umut alev

a.vbs
---------------
Set o = CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument.3.0")
o.async = False
o.load("a.xml")
qs = "\\LocalServer"
o.setProperty "SelectionLanguage", "XPath"
WScript.echo o.selectSingleNode("/root/e1/e2[@attr='"& qs &"']").xml

a.xml
---------------
<root>
<e1>
<e2 attr="\\RemoteServer" >remote server</e2>
<e2 attr="\\LocalServer" >my local server</e2>
<e2 attr="\\ExternalServer" >external server</e2>
</e1>
</root>
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm.
"Alastair Cameron" <al**************@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9m***********@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk...

VB6, MSXML 3.2 installed:

Q1.

I am having a problem selecting nodes with XPATH expressions when an
attribute values contain backslashes (\\) in as part of its value:

For example the following statement fails to find a node (even though one
exists in the XML) if the value of the LDAPServerURL attribute is
\\LocalServer but works if the value is "LocalServer".

Set xmlElement = _

xmlConfigFile.documentElement.selectSingleNode("Fa cility[@LDAPServerURL='" & <SomeValue> & "']")

I assumed that anything inside the '' was treated as a literal, but XPATH
looks like it is using the backslashes in a XPATH context.

What do I need to do to get anything insde the '<SomeValue>' treated as a
string literal...?

Q2.

Second question: if my attribute values contains embedded single quote (')
or double quotes ("") how do I handle both circumstances when building XPATH expressions to retrieve them?

Thanks.

Alastair