Xpath queries not working in some cases

[musicgold]

Hi,

I am new in XML. But I have done coding in VBA, C, and HTML. I am using VBA to extract data from an xml file. I use Xpathbuilder to generate Xpath queries for my work. However, some Xpath queries are causing errors in my program. As I am new in xml and its standards I am not sure what is causing them. Answers to the following questions might help me in understanding these problems better. Can you please help me? Thanks.

1. Which version of xml am I using? In my program I declare variables as shown here. Dim oDoc As MSXML2.DOMDocument, Dim oNodeList As msxml2.IXMLDOMNodeList. Also, in Refrences of the VBA environment I have selected Microsoft xml.V6.0. I have Microsoft XP and Office 2003 SP2.

2. Why the SelectionLanguage property is not working? When I put the following statement in my code, the selectnodes statement gives me an error. Selectnodes work fine without this statement. I don’t know why this is happening.
oDoc.setProperty "SelectionLanguage", "XPath"

3. Why the Selectnodes statement is not working for a few queries? I am using this statement:
Set oChildren = oDoc.selectNodes(Path). This statement works for simple queries such as
Path = /FSK:Research/FSK:Product/FSK:Context/FSK:IssuerDetails/FSK:Issuer/FSK:SecurityDetails/FSK:Security
But causes an error for
Path =
/FSK:Research/FSK:Product/FSK:Context/FSK:IssuerDetails/FSK:Issuer/FSK:SecurityDetails/FSK:Security [@securityID='1404']
Or Path =
/FSK:Research/FSK:Product/FSK:Context/FSK:IssuerDetails/FSK:Issuer/FSK:SecurityDetails/FSK:Security/FSK:FinancialGroup [2]

Note that I have verified these paths using Xpathbuilder.

I am also attaching my code below.

Thanks.

Dim oDoc As msxml2.DOMDocument
        Dim fSuccess As Boolean
        Dim oRoot As msxml2.IXMLDOMNode
        Dim oBegining As msxml2.IXMLDOMNode
        Dim oAttributes As msxml2.IXMLDOMNamedNodeMap
        Dim oCountryName As msxml2.IXMLDOMNode
        Dim oChildren As msxml2.IXMLDOMNodeList
        Dim oChild As msxml2.IXMLDOMNode
        Dim oNodeList As msxml2.IXMLDOMNodeList
 
        Dim Startcell As Range
        Dim temp As String
        Dim temp2 As String
        Dim Colno As Integer
        Dim oCell As Range
        Dim Path As String
        Dim Counter As Integer
 
On Error GoTo Exitfun
 
    Set oDoc = CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument")
 
    oDoc.async = False
    oDoc.validateOnParse = False
 
    oDoc.Load ("c:\test.xml")
 
  ' MsgBox oDoc.XML
 
    Worksheets("Template").Select
 
    Set oRoot = oDoc.documentElement
 
     Set oNodeList = oDoc.getElementsByTagName("FSK:SecurityName")  This works fine.
 
     temp = oNodeList.Item(0).childNodes.Item(0).Text
 
 
    Set Startcell = ActiveCell
    Counter = 0     ' to count columns
 
    For Each oCell In Worksheets("Instructions - Introduction").Range("G1:G21")
 
 
    Path = oCell.Value
 
   Set oChildren = oDoc.selectNodes(Path) This doesn't work sometimes.
 
   Startcell.Offset(0, Counter).Value = oChildren.Length
 
    Counter = Counter + 1
    Next
Exit Sub
 
Exitfun: MsgBox "Error occured" & Counter
 
End Sub
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited by musicgold
 

[Dormilich]

1. XML version should be 1.0, but that should be declared in the file's xml prolog

3. I havn't found a good reference for selectNode() but it looks like there are problems if a condition is to fulfill in the XPath. another possibility could be that oDoc is not of the expected type (MDC says you need a Range object for that, don't know how it is handled on IE, though)

regards

[jkmyoung]

1&2&3. SelectionProperty Support. The XPath value is only supported in MSXML3.0 and up. You're using mostly MSXML2 objects. See: SelectionLanguage Property These probably don't support these particular xpaths.

Instead of using msxml2.IXMLDOMNode, why not just use IXMLDOMNode , etc.. for other objects?

[musicgold]

Thanks folks. I found a solution for the problem. It was related to defining namespace. The error I was getting was - undefined namespace or something. So I inserted the following line in my code and it started working fine.

oDoc.setProperty "SelectionNamespaces", "xmlns:FSK='http://www.Trevis.com/xmlSchema/Tradepro'"

Also,

jkmyoung said:
Instead of using msxml2.IXMLDOMNode, why not just use IXMLDOMNode , etc.. for other objects?

I am new in xml. I don't know the advantage of one over the other. Could you point me to a webpage that explains the difference between these two types?