RE: [xsl] xpath confusion

Subject: RE: [xsl] xpath confusion
From: Bodrul Haque <Bodrul.Haque@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 11:51:08 +0100
Jeni, Jarno and David

Thanks for the help. (now I need to make sure I fully understand it!)

Bodrul


-----Original Message-----
From: David Carlisle [mailto:davidc@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: 03 July 2003 11:01
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [xsl] xpath confusion



there are 4 possible answers that a compliant system could give to

   XPath: "Root/Keys/Client[@id="abc"]/ descendant-or-self::node()" 
8, 6, 4 or 3

as there there is the Client node itself (as you used descendant-or-self
rather than child) plus 7, 5, 3 or 2 child nodes.

The child nodes are counted as follows:

7: Your XML preserves all white space and comments, and your stylesheet
   isn't discarding white space with xsl:strip-space

5: Your XML parser discards comments but white space is preserved

3: your parser keeps comments but the parser or stylesheet are
   discarding white space

2; your parser discards comments and teh parser or stylesheet is
   dicarding white space.




So it seems that you are discarding white space most likely you have
xsl:strip space somewhere or are using MSXML which takes a cavalier
attitute to (not) preserving space in the input document.



That assumption then explains your remaining queries
  XPath: "Root/Keys/Client[@id="abc"]/ descendant-or-self::comment()"
  selects 1 node

you have one child node, here descendant-or-self::comment
is the same as descendant::comment you don't get 1 extra node from the
current Client  node, as that isn't a comment.


  XPath: "Root/Keys/Client[@id="abc"]/ descendant-or-self::text()"
  selects 0 nodes. 
  
As above on the assumption you've discared the white space, there are no
text node children, and the Client node is an element not text so 0 it
is.


  I would like to select the 3 nodes <Client>, <a /> and <b />. Any help is
  appreciated.

  Root/Keys/Client[@id="abc"]/descendant-or-self::*

will select Client and its element children and return 3 nodes.

David

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