XSLT and XPath Reference
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XSLT and XPath Reference
Table of Contents
XPath Reference
An XPath expression generally defines a pattern in order to select a set of nodes. These patterns are used by XSLT to perform transformations or by XPointer for addressing purpose.
XPath specification specifies seven types of nodes which can be the output of execution of the XPath expression.
Node
- Root - Root element node of an XML Document.
- Element - Element node.
- Text - Text of an element node.
- Attribute - Attribute of an element node.
- Comment - Comment
- Processing Instruction
- Namespace
XPath uses a path expression to select node or a list of nodes from an XML document. Following is the list of useful paths and expression to select any node/ list of nodes from an XML document.
XPath Notation
| Selectors | |
|---|---|
nodename | Selects all nodes with the name "nodename" |
/ | Selects from the root node |
// | Selects nodes in the whole document |
. | Selects the current node |
.. | Selects the parent of the current node |
@ | Selects attributes |
* | Matches any element node |
@* | Matches any attribute node |
//node[1] | Selects the first element that is the child of the element. |
//node[@class and @id] | select the node with both "class" and "id" |
//node[count(child)=2] | select the node with two "child" elements |
//node[contains(@title,"text")] | select the node with "text" in the title attribute |
//node[child/child1] | select the node with "child/child1" child nodes |
//node[position() mode 2 ==0] | select the odd children elements |
//node/text()[2] | return the second text element of node |
//node[not(@class)] | the node without "class" attribute |
| Accessor Functions | |
node-name(node) | Returns the node-name of the argument node |
nilled(node) | Returns a Boolean value indicating whether the argument node is nilled |
data(item.item,...) | Takes a sequence of items and returns a sequence of atomic values |
base-uri() fn:base-uri(node) | Returns the value of the base-uri property of the current or specified node |
document-uri(node) | Returns the value of the document-uri property for the specified node |
| Functions on Nodes | |
name() | Returns the node-name of the argument node |
local-name() | Returns a Boolean value indicating whether the argument node is nilled |
namespace-uri() | Takes a sequence of items and returns a sequence of atomic values |
lang(lang) | Returns the value of the base-uri property of the current or specified node |
root() | Returns the value of the document-uri property for the specified node |
| Functions on Numeric Values | |
number(arg) | Returns the numeric value of the argument. The argument could be a boolean, string, or node-set |
abs(num) | Returns the absolute value of the argument |
ceiling(num) | Returns the smallest integer that is greater than the number argument |
floor(num) | Returns the largest integer that is not greater than the number argument |
round(num) | Rounds the number argument to the nearest integer |
| Aggregate Functions | |
count((item,item,...)) | Returns the count of nodes |
avg((arg,arg,...)) | Returns the average of the argument values |
max((arg,arg,...)) | Returns the argument that is greater than the others |
min((arg,arg,...)) | Returns the argument that is less than the others |
sum(arg,arg,...) | Returns the sum of the numeric value of each node in the specified node-set |
| Context Functions | |
position() | Returns the index position of the node that is currently being processed |
last() | Returns the number of items in the processed node list |
current-dateTime() | Returns the current dateTime (with timezone) |
current-date() | Returns the current date (with timezone) |
current-time() | Returns the current time (with timezone) |
| Functions on Strings | |
string(arg) | Returns the string value of the argument. The argument could be a number, boolean, or node-set |
codepoints-to-string(int,int,...) | Returns a string from a sequence of code points |
string-to-codepoints(string) | Returns a sequence of code points from a string |
codepoint-equal(comp1,comp2) | Returns true if the value of comp1 is equal to the value of comp2, according to the Unicode code point collation, otherwise it returns false |
compare(comp1,comp2) | Returns -1 if comp1 is less than comp2, 0 if comp1 is equal to comp2, or 1 if comp1 is greater than comp2 (according to the rules of the collation that is used) |
string-join((string,string,...),sep) | Returns a string created by concatenating the string arguments and using the sep argument as the separator |
substring(string,start,len) | Returns the substring from the start position to the specified length. Index of the first character is 1. If length is omitted it returns the substring from the start position to the end |
string-length(string) | Returns the length of the specified string. If there is no string argument it returns the length of the string value of the current node |
normalize-space(string) | Removes leading and trailing spaces from the specified string, and replaces all internal sequences of white space with one and returns the result. If there is no string argument it does the same on the current node |
normalize-unicode() | |
upper-case(string) | Converts the string argument to upper-case |
lower-case(string) | Converts the string argument to lower-case |
translate(string1,string2,string3) | Converts string1 by replacing the characters in string2 with the characters in string3 |
escape-uri(stringURI,esc-res) | |
contains(string1,string2) | Returns true if string1 contains string2, otherwise it returns false |
starts-with(string1,string2) | Returns true if string1 starts with string2, otherwise it returns false |
ends-with(string1,string2) | Returns true if string1 ends with string2, otherwise it returns false |
substring-before(str1,str2) | Returns the start of string1 before string2 occurs in it |
substring-after(str1,str2) | Returns the remainder of string1 after string2 occurs in it |
matches(string,pattern) | Returns true if the string argument matches the pattern, otherwise, it returns false |
replace(string,pattern,replace) | Returns a string that is created by replacing the given pattern with the replace argument |
tokenize(string,pattern) | |
| Functions on Boolean Values | |
boolean(arg) | Returns a boolean value for a number, string, or node-set |
not(arg) | The argument is first reduced to a boolean value by applying the boolean() function. Returns true if the boolean value is false, and false if the boolean value is true |
true() | Returns the boolean value true |
false() | Returns the boolean value false |
