XPathNavigator - how to tell if a node exists?

[=?Utf-8?B?RGF2aWQgVGhpZWxlbg==?=]

Hi;

If I have an XPathNavigator object and for a given xpath statement need to
know if the node exists, how should I do this? I have found for some xpath
functions it returns an empty string if the node does not exist but that is
also the result for an empty node.

--
thanks - dave
david_at_windward_dot_net
http://www.windwardreports.com

Cubicle Wars - http://www.windwardreports.com/film.htm

[Bjoern Hoehrmann]

* David Thielen wrote in microsoft.public.dotnet.xml:

>If I have an XPathNavigator object and for a given xpath statement need to
know if the node exists, how should I do this? I have found for some xpath
functions it returns an empty string if the node does not exist but that is
also the result for an empty node.

I do not know how you use the XPathNavigator, but using methods that
return strings is not the right approach; also note that if your XPath
expression evaluates to a string, there is no way to determine whether
some nodes relevant for the expression exist or not. A simple method is
to use nav.Evaluate("boolean(...)") and cast the result to a boolean.
--
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bj****@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Weinh. Str. 22 · Telefon: [phone] · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
68309 Mannheim · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

[=?Utf-8?B?RGF2aWQgVGhpZWxlbg==?=]

The problem with that is a user can feed us anything for the xpath -
including true(). What we really need is something that returns any of the
following:
1) not a legit xpath statement
2) xpath to a node - node exists
3) xpath to a node - node does not exist
4) other - like name(/root/node)

--
thanks - dave
david_at_windward_dot_net
http://www.windwardreports.com

Cubicle Wars - http://www.windwardreports.com/film.htm


"Bjoern Hoehrmann" wrote:

* David Thielen wrote in microsoft.public.dotnet.xml:

If I have an XPathNavigator object and for a given xpath statement need to
know if the node exists, how should I do this? I have found for some xpath
functions it returns an empty string if the node does not exist but that is
also the result for an empty node.

I do not know how you use the XPathNavigator, but using methods that
return strings is not the right approach; also note that if your XPath
expression evaluates to a string, there is no way to determine whether
some nodes relevant for the expression exist or not. A simple method is
to use nav.Evaluate("boolean(...)") and cast the result to a boolean.
--
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bj****@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Weinh. Str. 22 · Telefon: [phone] · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
68309 Mannheim · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

[Bjoern Hoehrmann]

* David Thielen wrote in microsoft.public.dotnet.xml:

>The problem with that is a user can feed us anything for the xpath -
including true(). What we really need is something that returns any of the
following:
1) not a legit xpath statement
2) xpath to a node - node exists
3) xpath to a node - node does not exist
4) other - like name(/root/node)

You can use the .Compile method which will return a XPathExpression
object which has a returnType property of type XPathResultType which
in turn will allow you to distinguish these cases. Evaluating the ex-
pression will then tell you whether there are matching nodes.
--
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bj****@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Weinh. Str. 22 · Telefon: [phone] · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
68309 Mannheim · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

[=?Utf-8?B?RGF2aWQgVGhpZWxlbg==?=]

great idea - thanks
--
thanks - dave
david_at_windward_dot_net
http://www.windwardreports.com

Cubicle Wars - http://www.windwardreports.com/film.htm


"Bjoern Hoehrmann" wrote:

* David Thielen wrote in microsoft.public.dotnet.xml:

The problem with that is a user can feed us anything for the xpath -
including true(). What we really need is something that returns any of the
following:
1) not a legit xpath statement
2) xpath to a node - node exists
3) xpath to a node - node does not exist
4) other - like name(/root/node)

You can use the .Compile method which will return a XPathExpression
object which has a returnType property of type XPathResultType which
in turn will allow you to distinguish these cases. Evaluating the ex-
pression will then tell you whether there are matching nodes.
--
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bj****@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Weinh. Str. 22 · Telefon: [phone] · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
68309 Mannheim · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/