<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”ISO-8859-1″?><bookstore><book>
<title lang=”eng”>Harry Potter</title>
<price>29.99</price>
</book><book>
<title lang=”eng”>Learning XML</title>
<price>39.95</price>
</book></bookstore>
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/ – Selects from the root node
// – Selects nodes in the document from the current node that match the selection no matter where they are
. – Selects the current node
.. – Selects the parent of the current node
@ – Selects attributes
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Path Expression Result
/bookstore/book[1] Selects the first book element that is the child of the bookstore element
/bookstore/book[last()] Selects the last book element that is the child of the bookstore element
/bookstore/book[last()-1] Selects the last but one book element that is the child of the bookstore element
/bookstore/book[position()<3] Selects the first two book elements that are children of the bookstore element
//title[@lang] Selects all the title elements that have an attribute named lang
//title[@lang='eng'] Selects all the title elements that have an attribute named lang with a value of ‘eng’
/bookstore/book[price>35.00] Selects all the book elements of the bookstore element that have a price element with a value greater than 35.00
/bookstore/book[price>35.00]/title Selects all the title elements of the book elements of the bookstore element that have a price element with a value greater than 35.00
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Wildcard Description
* Matches any element node
@* Matches any attribute node
node() Matches any node of any kind
Path Expression Result
/bookstore/* Selects all the child nodes of the bookstore element
//* Selects all elements in the document
//title[@*] Selects all title elements which have any attribute
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Selecting Several Paths
By using the | operator in an XPath expression you can select several paths.
Path Expression Result
//book/title | //book/price Selects all the title AND price elements of all book elements
//title | //price Selects all the title AND price elements in the document
/bookstore/book/title | //price Selects all the title elements of the book element of the bookstore element AND all the price elements in the document
count
count(//first-name[.='Pet'])
