XPath¶

Use XPath when you need to select, compare, or transform values from the XML data model, XML databases, or other XML structures used by Emakin.

This page is a practical reference to the core selection syntax, predicates, axes, and operators that appear most often in Emakin forms, rules, and process logic.

Selecting Nodes¶

XPath uses path expressions to select nodes in an XML document. The most useful path expressions are listed below:

We will be presenting a couple of XPath examples for the following example of XML document :

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14

<bookstore>
  <book>
    <title lang="en">A Clockwork Orange</title>
    <author>Anthony Burgess</author>
    <year>1962</year>
    <price>19.99</price>
  </book>
  <book>
    <title lang="en">Nineteen Eighty-Four</title>
    <author>George Orwell</author>
    <year>1949</year>
    <price>14.99</price>
  </book>
</bookstore>

Here are some path expressions and the result of the expressions:

Predicates¶

Predicates are used to find a specific node or a node that contains a specific value. Predicates are always embedded in square brackets.

In the table below we have listed some path expressions with predicates and the result of the expressions:

Selecting Unknown Nodes¶

XPath wildcards can be used to select unknown XML nodes.

In the table below we have listed some path expressions and the result of the expressions:

Selecting Several Paths¶

By using the | operator in an XPath expression you can select several paths.

In the table below we have listed some path expressions and the result of the expressions:

XPath Axes¶

An axis defines a node-set relative to the current node.

XPath Operators¶

Below is a list of the operators that can be used in XPath expressions:

Related Pages¶

• XPath and XQuery
• XPath Functions
• XQuery