Re: [xsl] Basic question about Namespace handling in XPath 1.0 (not necessarily related to XSLT)

[Geert Josten <Geert.Josten@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

The answer should be pretty clear, it all depends on how you declare the namespaces in your XSL 
stylesheet... :)

> 1. If we have a XPath like "//sup:name", how will the XPath processor 
> know which "sup:name" will have to be returned? (considering that there 
> are two sup:name elements that are in two different namespaces.

<xsl:value-of select="//sup:name" xmlns:sup="http://www.suppliers.com"; /> will result in the first one.

<xsl:value-of select="//sup:name" xmlns:sup="http://www.anothersuppliers.com"; /> will result in the 
second one.

You will probably choose to assing prefix sup1 to the first namespace and sup2 to the second. If you 
want both, you can then simply specify //sup1:name|//sup2:name (or //*:name in XSLT 2.0 altogether)

> 2.  Similarly, if we have a XPath such as "//order", which "order" will 
> be considered considering that there are two order elements both in 
> default namespace (first order element is actually in null namespace 
> whereas the second one in default namespace declared in the root element)

Likewise. I expect that //order results in the first when you don't specify a default namespace, and 
in the second if you use xmlns="http://www.customers.com";.

It is adviced not to use default namespaces in XSL stylesheets, though.

Cheers,
Geert