what how to get a node from an xml document using xslt

Question

I am not familiar with xml. I have an xml document structured like below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<a:b xmlns="something">
  <a:c>
    <d>
      <e>
        <item>item1</item>
        <item>item1</item>
        <item>item1</item>
       </e>
     </d>
   <a:c>
 <a:b>

I want to get the node "e" to retrieve its child items in my xslt as below:

<xsl:variable name="Product" select="document('itemList.xml')/node()[1]/node()[0]/node()[0]/node()[0]"/>

But it is not working. Kindly suggest the right way to do it. Also, is the first node refered by node()[0] or node()[1]? Links to articles for a good understanding of this node concept of xml are welcome.

Is the /node()[1]/node()[0]/node()[0]/node()[0] XPATH? I think maybe you can replace it with //item or else /a:b/a:c/d/e/item — Dan
– Dan, Commented Jan 24, 2013 at 8:07
Also you asked for links: class2go.stanford.edu/db/Winter2013 check out the videos of the querying XML section. Watch at least the XPATH and the XSLT video. — Dan
– Dan, Commented Jan 24, 2013 at 8:09

R Kaja Mohideen · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-24 08:09:01Z

1

Your XML doesn't have the prefix a bound to an URI. Assuming that is fixed.

a:b/a:c/x:d/x:e

will get you the node when x is bound to something

answered Jan 24, 2013 at 8:09

R Kaja Mohideen

9171 gold badge8 silver badges24 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

Dan Over a year ago

but to get all the children shouldn't you add a /item at the end there (or a /x:item)?

R Kaja Mohideen Over a year ago

@Dan x:e provides the entire sub-tree. You'll have the item in it. When you have /item appended at last of your XPath, you'll be getting a list of item nodes, not e.

Dan Over a year ago

Yeah that's my interpretation of the OPs question though. Even though he says he wants node e I think he really wants a list of the item elements. He says he wants to retrieve the child elements of node e. Either way I'm sure this will get him to the right place. +1

JLRishe · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-24 08:41:14Z

0

The XML you provided is not currently valid. It has declared a default namespace, but has not declared the a: namespace. It would need to start with something like this:

<a:b xmlns="something" xmlns:a="somethingElse">

If, in your XSLT, you declared the a namespace and associated the something namespace with the prefix s, you could access the e node with:

/a:b/a:c/s:d/s:e

If you want to access the nodes simply based on their position, you could do this, though this is not usually a very good practice:

/*[1]/*[1]/*[1]/*[1]

To answer your question, XPath is 1-index based, so the first item in any selection is accessed with [1].

edited Jan 24, 2013 at 8:41

answered Jan 24, 2013 at 8:25

JLRishe

102k19 gold badges138 silver badges171 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

what how to get a node from an xml document using xslt

2 Answers 2

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related