Selecting a namespace-prefixed node

[Dag]

Hi

I am pretty much an xml beginner; hopefully someone can easily answer this one... I want to select a node representing a worksheet in an xml document for the Office Web Components spreadsheet. The file uses xml namespaces, of which I know very little. But it does seem clear that I can't select the <ss:Worksheet> element by name only; the xpath "//Worksheet" does not match any nodes

Extract from the file, in case this is needed to come up with the solution

<Workbook xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet"><!-- ... there's more, but I can't imagine we need it here --><!-- Below: what I want to select --><ss:Worksheet ss:Name="sheet" xmlns:ss="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet"></ss:Worksheet></Workbook

Help greatly appreciated!

[Dag]

Hi again,

I figured out a way. Just in case anyone else is wondering too, using the xpath //*[local-name()='ss:Worksheet'] is sufficient in my case. (However, I've just learned that the same namespace prefix can have different meanings in the same document; it is defined only for a subtree. Thus, in general, selecting nodes by means of the local-name() function could lead to selecting nodes that refer to different namespaces and have different meanings.)

Happy coding!

[Oleg Tkachenko [MVP]]

Dag wrote:

I figured out a way. Just in case anyone else is wondering too, using
the xpath //*[local-name()='ss:Worksheet'] is sufficient in my case.

Hmmm, actually it shouldn't work. local-name() function returns local
part of the name - "Worksheet". name() function returns local name along
with namespace prefix - "ss:Worksheet". //*[local-name()='Worksheet']
should work. But it's namespace unaware query.

Instead use overloaded SelectNodes method, which accepts
XmlNamespaceManager, see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...nodestopic.asp
--
Oleg Tkachenko [XML MVP, XmlInsider]
http://blog.tkachenko.com