How to get the XML path of an XmlNode?

[Sharon]

How can I get the full XML path (as string) of a specific XmlNode ?
--
Thanks
Sharon

[Martin Honnen]

Sharon wrote:

How can I get the full XML path (as string) of a specific XmlNode ?

What is "the full XML Path" of a node, do you have any definition for
that? Some XML editors can assist you constructing or maybe even
generating an XPath expression.
--

Martin Honnen --- MVP XML
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Sharon]

Lets say I have the following XML file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf.8"?>
<System Name = "System">
<Parameters>
<T1>
<T2>
<T3>
<L3.1>111</L3.1>
<L3.1>222</L3.1>
<L3.1>333</L3.1>
<L3.1>444</L3.1>
<L3.1>555</L3.1>
</T3>
</T2>
</T1>
</Parameters>
</System>
And in some point in the code, someone does:
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml( XmlFilenAme );
XmlNode xNode = doc.SelectSingleNode("//System/Parameters/T1/T2/T3/L3.1");

And passes this xNode to me in some other piece of code.

Now I need to know the full XML path of the given node, that in this case is
the "//System/Parameters/T1/T2/T3/L3.1".

So the question is: How can I figure out the full XML path of any given
System.Xml.XmlNode ?
-----
Thanks
Sharon

[Dimitre Novatchev]

http://www.topxml.com/code/default.a...20010323001030
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
"Sharon" <Sh*****@newsgroups.nospamwrote in message
news:52**********************************@microsof t.com...

Lets say I have the following XML file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf.8"?>
<System Name = "System">
<Parameters>
<T1>
<T2>
<T3>
<L3.1>111</L3.1>
<L3.1>222</L3.1>
<L3.1>333</L3.1>
<L3.1>444</L3.1>
<L3.1>555</L3.1>
</T3>
</T2>
</T1>
</Parameters>
</System>
And in some point in the code, someone does:
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml( XmlFilenAme );
XmlNode xNode = doc.SelectSingleNode("//System/Parameters/T1/T2/T3/L3.1");

And passes this xNode to me in some other piece of code.

Now I need to know the full XML path of the given node, that in this case
is
the "//System/Parameters/T1/T2/T3/L3.1".

So the question is: How can I figure out the full XML path of any given
System.Xml.XmlNode ?
-----
Thanks
Sharon

[Sharon]

Dimitre, thanks for your reply.
After looking at the link you have posted, I'm afraid I don't understand it.
In this link page I see only XML file. But I need to find the node XML path
by code, like the C# using any standard parser.
------
Thanks
Sharon

[Gadget]

On Mon, 20 Nov 2006 07:27:02 -0800, Sharon wrote:

Dimitre, thanks for your reply.
After looking at the link you have posted, I'm afraid I don't understand it.
In this link page I see only XML file. But I need to find the node XML path
by code, like the C# using any standard parser.
------
Thanks
Sharon

The problem you have is that it is very complex to identify the index of
the elements in a node path, and that's what the example Dimittre posted is
doing.
An XmlNode has a ParentNode method, so you can just walk back up the tree,
reading the name of each node, and that might give you something like
System/Parameters/T1/T2/T3/L3.1
The problem is that you also need the index of items that are part of a
repeating node:
System/Parameters/T1/T2/T3/L3.1[3]

Your example says 'doc.SelectSingleNode', but there are 5 nodes in your
document, so walking back up the tree will give you a simple XPath to the
first node (if there are no repeating elements further up the tree), but
this is a far from suitable solution.

Why do you need the XPath expression? What is it being used for?

Cheers,
Gadget

[Dimitre Novatchev]

"Sharon" <Sh*****@newsgroups.nospamwrote in message
news:42**********************************@microsof t.com...

Dimitre, thanks for your reply.
After looking at the link you have posted, I'm afraid I don't understand
it.
In this link page I see only XML file. But I need to find the node XML
path
by code, like the C# using any standard parser.

Sharon,

The XSLT code is probably simpler than any C# code doing the same and much
more portable.

If I can say one thing to be remembered is that at present XSLT is the best
programming language for tree manipulation/transformation.

It is also not a bad functional programming language and has some very
efficient implementations.
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev

[Peter Flynn]

Sharon wrote:

How can I get the full XML path (as string) of a specific XmlNode ?

Open the file in Emacs with psgml.
Press C-c C-w

That gives you the element descendancy.
Change all occurrences of "in" to a slash to get a path.

If you need the enumerated descendancy (as you imply by the use of the
word "full"), install David Megginson's psgml-xpointer.el and type
M-x sgml-xpointer RET

That gives you the full (TEI-format) location ladder. I don't know of a
function to return the XPath, but there's probably one out there. Most
other decent editors will have similar functions.

///Peter
--
XML FAQ: http://xml.silmaril.ie/