Re: [xsl] Selecting Specific Elements Regardless of Namespace

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lindy,

At 02:33 PM 5/9/2002, you wrote:

> select="//*[local-name()='apple']"
>
> I have found where this statement allows me to get an element named apple 
> regardless of where it is at in the tree.

Yes, and select="//apple" works even better. It actually gets *all* 
elements named apple, not just one.

>   What if I need to get a specific apple.
>
> /fruit/apples/jonathan/apple

//jonathan/apple gets you all apples that are inside jonathans.

> as opposed to
> /fruit/apples/grannysmith/apple

This is pretty basic XPath.

Fancier: all apples that are not in a grannysmith:

//apple[not(parent::grannysmith)]

Does anyone have a good recommendation on where new users can go to learn 
XPath? A common weakness of currently-available XSLT books is in their 
coverage of XPath's data model and syntax. Newbies need something that is 
both (a) comprehensive, systematic and correct, and (b) easy to swallow and 
digest. Unfortunately, it seems to be an area in which lots of folks think 
they can cut corners and fake it, whereas in my experience a couple of 
hours spent learning this stuff get you a *huge* return on investment in 
time (and list bandwidth) saved later.

Anyway Lindy, there's your answer.

Enjoy,
Wendell


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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