XPath and default (overridden) namespaces

[Peter Theill]

Hi,

I need some help on XPath ... what's the expressions to get:

1. All "Employee" nodes?
2. Only "Employee" nodes from "urn:test1" namespace?

The document is shown below.

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<NorthwindEmployees>
<Employee xmlns="urn:test1">
<employeeid>1</employeeid>
<lastname>Davolio</lastname>
<firstname>Nancy</firstname>
<title>Sales Representative</title>
</Employee>
<Employee xmlns="urn:test2">
<employeeid>2</employeeid>
<lastname>Fuller</lastname>
<firstname>Andrew</firstname>
<title>Vice President, Sales</title>
</Employee>
<Employee>
<employeeid>3</employeeid>
<lastname>Leverling</lastname>
<firstname>Janet</firstname>
<title>Sales Representative</title>
</Employee>
</NorthwindEmployees>

I'm only able to get the "Employee" nodes from default namespace by using:

//NorthwindEmployees/Employee

It returns Employee 3.
Rgd,
Peter Theill

[Oleg Tkachenko [MVP]]

Peter Theill wrote:

I need some help on XPath ... what's the expressions to get:

1. All "Employee" nodes?
You should realize that namespace is integral part of an element name,
so "All "Employee" nodes" actually makes little sense. You mean all
elements with local name "Employee"? Then use
/NorthwindEmployees/*[local-name='Employee']
2. Only "Employee" nodes from "urn:test1" namespace?

/NorthwindEmployees/foo:Employee
where foo prefix is bound to "urn:test1" namespace.

Or (usually machine-generated form)

/NorthwindEmployees/*[local-name='Employee' and namespace-uri()='urn:test1']

PS. Make sure you read "XML Namespaces and How They Affect XPath and
XSLT" at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...ml05202002.asp

--
Oleg Tkachenko [XML MVP]
http://blog.tkachenko.com

[Peter Theill]

> You should realize that namespace is integral part of an element name,

so "All "Employee" nodes" actually makes little sense. You mean all
elements with local name "Employee"?

Thank you very much, this was exactly my problem. I didn't realize :-)

Thanks for the article you pointed me too - it was helpful.

Rgd,
Peter

[Oleg Tkachenko [MVP]]

Oleg Tkachenko [MVP] wrote:

You should realize that namespace is integral part of an element name,
so "All "Employee" nodes" actually makes little sense. You mean all
elements with local name "Employee"? Then use
/NorthwindEmployees/*[local-name='Employee']
I meant

/NorthwindEmployees/*[local-name()='Employee']

2. Only "Employee" nodes from "urn:test1" namespace?

/NorthwindEmployees/foo:Employee
where foo prefix is bound to "urn:test1" namespace.

Or (usually machine-generated form)

/NorthwindEmployees/*[local-name='Employee' and
namespace-uri()='urn:test1']

/NorthwindEmployees/*[local-name()='Employee' and
namespace-uri()='urn:test1']

--
Oleg Tkachenko [XML MVP]
http://blog.tkachenko.com