Cross-browser XPath implementation in JavaScript

Google's AJAXSLT open source project fits well the stated requirements.

As their own description goes to say:

"AJAXSLT is an implementation of XSLT in JavaScript. Because XSLT uses XPath, it is also an implementation of XPath that can be used independently of XSLT. This implementation has the advantange that it makes XSLT uniformly available on more browsers than natively provide it, and that it can be extended to yet more browsers if necessary. AJAXSLT is interesting for developers who strive aggressively for cross browser compatibility of their advanced web applications. "

UPDATE: In the end of 2010 Michael Kay has been compiling his Saxon XSLT 2.0 processor to Javascript (thus making it available to all 5 major browsers) using GWT. It is likely there will be a light-weight in-browser Saxon soon.

This is what I use

// xpath.js
// ------------------------------------------------------------------
//
// a cross-browser xpath class.
// Derived form code at http://jmvidal.cse.sc.edu/talks/javascriptxml/xpathexample.html.
//
// Tested in Chrome, IE9, and FF6.0.2
//
// Author     : Dino
// Created    : Sun Sep 18 18:39:58 2011
// Last-saved : <2011-September-19 15:07:20>
//
// ------------------------------------------------------------------

/*jshint browser:true */

(function(globalScope) {
    'use strict';

    /**
     * The first argument to this constructor is the text of the XPath expression.
     *
     * If the expression uses any XML namespaces, the second argument must
     * be a JavaScript object that maps namespace prefixes to the URLs that define
     * those namespaces.  The properties of this object are taken as prefixes, and
     * the values associated to those properties are the URLs.
     *
     * There's no way to specify a non-null default XML namespace. You need to use
     * prefixes in order to reference a non-null namespace in a query.
     *
     */

    var expr = function(xpathText, namespaces) {
        var prefix;
        this.xpathText = xpathText;    // Save the text of the expression
        this.namespaces = namespaces || null;  // And the namespace mapping

        if (document.createExpression) {
            this.xpathExpr = true;
            // I tried using a compiled xpath expression, it worked on Chrome,
            // but it did not work on FF6.0.2.  Threw various exceptions.
            // So I punt on "compiling" the xpath and just evaluate it.
            //
            // This flag serves only to store the result of the check.
            //

                // document.createExpression(xpathText,
                // // This function is passed a
                // // namespace prefix and returns the URL.
                // function(prefix) {
                //     return namespaces[prefix];
                // });
        }
        else {
            // assume IE and convert the namespaces object into the
            // textual form that IE requires.
            this.namespaceString = "";
            if (namespaces !== null) {
                for(prefix in namespaces) {
                    // Add a space if there is already something there
                    if (this.namespaceString.length>1) this.namespaceString += ' ';
                    // And add the namespace
                    this.namespaceString += 'xmlns:' + prefix + '="' +
                        namespaces[prefix] + '"';
                }
            }
        }
    };

    /**
     * This is the getNodes() method of XPath.Expression.  It evaluates the
     * XPath expression in the specified context.  The context argument should
     * be a Document or Element object.  The return value is an array
     * or array-like object containing the nodes that match the expression.
     */
    expr.prototype.getNodes = function(xmlDomCtx) {
        var self = this, a, i,
            doc = xmlDomCtx.ownerDocument;

        // If the context doesn't have ownerDocument, it is the Document
        if (doc === null) doc = xmlDomCtx;

        if (this.xpathExpr) {
            // could not get a compiled XPathExpression to work in FF6
            // var result = this.xpathExpr.evaluate(xmlDomCtx,
            //     // This is the result type we want
            //     XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,
            //     null);

            var result = doc.evaluate(this.xpathText,
                xmlDomCtx,
                function(prefix) {
                    return self.namespaces[prefix];
                },
                XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,
                null);

            // Copy the results into an array.
            a = [];
            for(i = 0; i < result.snapshotLength; i++) {
                a.push(result.snapshotItem(i));
            }
            return a;
        }
        else {
            // evaluate the expression using the IE API.
            try {
                // This is IE-specific magic to specify prefix-to-URL mapping
                doc.setProperty("SelectionLanguage", "XPath");
                doc.setProperty("SelectionNamespaces", this.namespaceString);

                // In IE, the context must be an Element not a Document,
                // so if context is a document, use documentElement instead
                if (xmlDomCtx === doc) xmlDomCtx = doc.documentElement;
                // Now use the IE method selectNodes() to evaluate the expression
                return xmlDomCtx.selectNodes(this.xpathText);
            }
            catch(e2) {
                throw "XPath is not supported by this browser.";
            }
        }
    };


    /**
     * This is the getNode() method of XPath.Expression.  It evaluates the
     * XPath expression in the specified context and returns a single matching
     * node (or null if no node matches).  If more than one node matches,
     * this method returns the first one in the document.
     * The implementation differs from getNodes() only in the return type.
     */
    expr.prototype.getNode = function(xmlDomCtx) {
        var self = this,
                doc = xmlDomCtx.ownerDocument;
        if (doc === null) doc = xmlDomCtx;
        if (this.xpathExpr) {

            // could not get compiled "XPathExpression" to work in FF4
            // var result =
            //     this.xpathExpr.evaluate(xmlDomCtx,
            //     // We just want the first match
            //     XPathResult.FIRST_ORDERED_NODE_TYPE,
            //     null);

            var result = doc.evaluate(this.xpathText,
                xmlDomCtx,
                function(prefix) {
                    return self.namespaces[prefix];
                },
                XPathResult.FIRST_ORDERED_NODE_TYPE,
                null);
            return result.singleNodeValue;
        }
        else {
            try {
                doc.setProperty("SelectionLanguage", "XPath");
                doc.setProperty("SelectionNamespaces", this.namespaceString);
                if (xmlDomCtx == doc) xmlDomCtx = doc.documentElement;
                return xmlDomCtx.selectSingleNode(this.xpathText);
            }
            catch(e) {
                throw "XPath is not supported by this browser.";
            }
        }
    };


    var getNodes = function(context, xpathExpr, namespaces) {
        return (new globalScope.XPath.Expression(xpathExpr, namespaces)).getNodes(context);
    };

    var getNode  = function(context, xpathExpr, namespaces) {
        return (new globalScope.XPath.Expression(xpathExpr, namespaces)).getNode(context);
    };


    /**
     * XPath is a global object, containing three members.  The
     * Expression member is a class modelling an Xpath expression.  Use
     * it like this:
     *
     *   var xpath1 = new XPath.Expression("/kml/Document/Folder");
     *   var nodeList = xpath1.getNodes(xmldoc);
     *
     *   var xpath2 = new XPath.Expression("/a:kml/a:Document",
     *                                   { a : 'http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2' });
     *   var node = xpath2.getNode(xmldoc);
     *
     * The getNodes() and getNode() methods are just utility methods for
     * one-time use. Example:
     *
     *   var oneNode = XPath.getNode(xmldoc, '/root/favorites');
     *
     *   var nodeList = XPath.getNodes(xmldoc, '/x:derp/x:twap', { x: 'urn:0190djksj-xx'} );
     *
     */

    // place XPath into the global scope.
    globalScope.XPath = {
        Expression : expr,
        getNodes   : getNodes,
        getNode    : getNode
    };

}(this));

You could use the basic XPath plug-in for jQuery to get XPath query-ing functionality.

Also, you could consider reading this article on XPath XML processing (again with jQuery)

Take a look at http://dev.abiss.gr/sarissa/ project. They have migrated most of XML-related APIs to IE, as well as evaluate method on document object. And indeed, jQuery doesn't have an XPath processor, it has a very simple path selector like: /a/b/c only

Here is the most recent cross-browser implementation of XPath in Javascript: https://github.com/andrejpavlovic/xpathjs

It is fully functional and unit tested, and has great support. The coolest part is that it also supports namespaces!

You may want to try jQuery XPath plugin with support for XPath 2.0 syntax that works cross-browser.

I don't think it allows for ad-hoc queries, but you might take a look at Johann Burkard's XSLT jQuery plug-in for inspiration on how to implement XPath queries. I use it in my jQuery Reference Dashboard widget and it's really solid.

You could make use of the existing native DOM support of each browser. For this you would have to create your own wrapper, the reason is the differences between browser. You can take a look at http://dotnetcaffe.blogspot.com

Best regards

FormFaces (XForms implementation in JS) has a reliable XPath engine that can be easly extracted and used independently.

I think you can use Cameron McCormack's xpath library here. It's perfectly working for me.

The other option could be LlamaLab XPath.js (though seems to be a bit old)