Accessing data from an Excel generated XML Spreadsheet

[sradoff]

I wish to use XPath to access data from within an Excel generated XML Spreadsheet (generated with MS Excel 2003). I am using an asp Web page (not .NET, not at this time). I instantiate MSXML.DomDocume nt.3.0. After loading the Excel generated XML Spreadsheet parse error free, I issue the following XPath query to create a set of row nodes from within the document:

"//Workbook/Worksheet[@ss:Name='Upload Data']/Table/Row"

I am greeted with the following error: Reference to undeclared namespace prefix: 'ss'. When I examine the Workbook element of the document I see clearly defined the namespace for 'ss' as well as others. I have fiddled around with the Excel generated XML Spreadsheet and have occassionally gotten the XPath query to work. However, I would like to be able to use the Excel generated XML Spreadsheet document without changes. Are there any suggestions as to what I might do or what I am doing that is wrong? Below is some asp test code that I use for evaluation:

    dim sXPath, objXML: set objXML = server.CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument.3.0")
    dim objRoot, objNode, objNodeList, objRows, objDataColumns, objData, v
    dim sPath: sPath = "C:\Sample_Dataset.xml"
    if objXML.load(sPath) then
        objXML.setProperty "SelectionLanguage", "XPath"
        set objNodeList = objXML.selectNodes("//Workbook/Worksheet[@ss:Name='Upload Data']/Table/Row")
        for each objRows in objNodeList
            set objDataColumns = objNode.selectNodes("./Cell/Data")
            for each objData in objDataColumn
                v = objData.text
            next
        next
    end if