Re: [xsl] How to select for ' in XPATH?

[Hermann Stamm-Wilbrandt <STAMMW@xxxxxxxxxx>]

There was a typo in my last email, '%22' works for "
"/*/*/*[contains(normalize-space(.),'%22')])"
and '%27' does not work for '
( the %22 gets converted to " character by unescape(s) )

> you are left with breaking up the string into components that
> contain no single quote and components that contain a single quote and
> then concatenate them e.g. if the selection on the page is e.g.
> What's that?
> you use
> "//*[contains(., concat('What', \"'\", ' that?')"

Good idea to break this up and concatenate.
But the basic problem remains, how to match for the single " ?

\"'\" does not work :-(


> Implementing breaking up the string with JavaScript should be possible
>although having to stuff all that into a bookmarklet might get ugly.
Perhaps this might get ugly, but not without a solution to match for
the single " character ...


Mit besten Gruessen / Best wishes,

Hermann Stamm-Wilbrandt
Developer, XML Compiler
WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances
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             Martin Honnen                                                 
             <Martin.Honnen@gm                                             
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             Please respond to         in XPATH?                           
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Hermann Stamm-Wilbrandt wrote:

> My real problem seems to be that I need a XPATH 1.0 solution since
> I want to do this in a browser environment, right?
>
>
> The real problem is as follows:
> - open an arbitrary web page in Firefox browser
>
> - with a bookmarklet do an arbitrary selection in that page
>   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookmarklet)
>
> - then the bookmarklet generates eg. the following xpath:
>   "//*[contains(normalize-space(.),'xyz')]"
>   where xyz is replaced by the actual selection data
>
> - then Mozilla's document.evaluate() is used to determine the
>   corresponding node in the DOM


> Any hint what can be done to make this work?
> (I have no control over the webpage nor control over user selection)

XPath 1.0 has no escape mechanism for string literals. Unless you can
use variables (and I don't know of a way with document.evaluate to do
that) you are left with breaking up the string into components that
contain no single quote and components that contain a single quote and
then concatenate them e.g. if the selection on the page is e.g.
What's that?
you use
"//*[contains(., concat('What', \"'\", ' that?')"
Implementing breaking up the string with JavaScript should be possible
although having to stuff all that into a bookmarklet might get ugly.


--

             Martin Honnen
             http://msmvps.com/blogs/martin_honnen/