Help with simple XPATH

[Monty]

Despite reading posts in Google, I don't understand XPATH. Can someone
help me write an XPATH. From Google I think my problem is that the
default namespace does not have a prefix. I can't change this as I have
received this XML and I didn't create it. All I want to is retrieve the
PROJECTNAME from the following XML. I am typing this XML and XPATH into
this site

http://www.activsoftware.com/xml/xpath/

The XPATH that does not work is /PROJECTS/PROJECTNAME.

Thank you
Monty

<PROJECTS xmlns="http://www.companyname.com/project"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<PROJECTNAME>
Project A
</PROJECTNAME>
<PROJECTBUDGET>
27000
</PROJECTBUDGET>
</PROJECTS>

[Martin Honnen]

Monty wrote:

The XPATH that does not work is /PROJECTS/PROJECTNAME.

<PROJECTS xmlns="http://www.companyname.com/project"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<PROJECTNAME>
Project A
</PROJECTNAME>

Those elements are in the namespace http://www.companyname.com/project
so for XPath to qualify element names in your expression you need to
bind a prefix to the namespace URI. Check your XPath API on how to do
that exactly, you can choose any prefix you like and you don't have to
change the XML source document, you just need to make sure your XPath
API knows that e.g. 'pf' is bound to http://www.companyname.com/project
and then you can use expressions alike
/pf:PROJECTS/pf:PROJECTNAME

Or as an alternative you could use e.g.
/*[namespace-uri() = 'http://www.companyname.com/project' and
local-name() = 'PROJECTS']/*[namespace-uri() =
'http://www.companyname.com/project' and local-name() = 'PROJECTNAME']
--

Martin Honnen
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Myron Turner]

Monty wrote:

Despite reading posts in Google, I don't understand XPATH. Can someone
help me write an XPATH. From Google I think my problem is that the
default namespace does not have a prefix. I can't change this as I have
received this XML and I didn't create it. All I want to is retrieve the
PROJECTNAME from the following XML. I am typing this XML and XPATH into
this site

http://www.activsoftware.com/xml/xpath/

The XPATH that does not work is /PROJECTS/PROJECTNAME.

Thank you
Monty

<PROJECTS xmlns="http://www.companyname.com/project"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<PROJECTNAME>
Project A
</PROJECTNAME>
<PROJECTBUDGET>
27000
</PROJECTBUDGET>
</PROJECTS>

You have to supply namespace prefixes in xsl/xpath for default
namespaces in xml. It took a bit of fussing, but here's a solution:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<xsl:template xmlns:pn="http://www.companyname.com/project" match="/">
<xsl:apply-templates select="pn:PROJECTS/pn:PROJECTNAME" />
<xsl:apply-templates select="pn:PROJECTS/pn:PROJECTBUDGET" />
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template xmlns:pn="http://www.companyname.com/project"
match="pn:PROJECTNAME">
Project Name: <xsl:value-of select = "." /><br />
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template xmlns:pn="http://www.companyname.com/project"
match="pn:PROJECTBUDGET">
Budget: <xsl:value-of select = "." />
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

--

_____________________
Myron Turner
http://www.room535.org
http://www.bstatzero.org
http://www.mturner.org/XML_PullParser/