hi,

simple question I guess but I couldn't find the answer...
How to extract the value of an attribute using xPath?

for example, lets say this is the xml:
<root>
        <classes>
                <class>
                        <lesson id="55" />
                        <lesson id="66" />
                        <lesson id="88" />
                </class >
        </classes>
</root>

and I want the output to be :
55
66
88

so the path should be: ...xmlDoc.selectNodes(/classes/class/lesson/???)
and I dont know what should be instead of the ???
(@id will bring back: id="55" while I need only 55)
Thanks

Janiv

/classes/class/lesson/@id returns the attribute nodes. You can then extract the values of the attribute nodes in your calling application, using getNodeValue() or whatever the DOM method is called.

XPath 1.0 doesn't have a data type for a set of strings, so you can't write an XPath 1.0 expression that returns a set of strings. In XPath 2.0 you can write

/classes/class/lesson/@id/string()



Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
Author, XSLT Programmer's Reference and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference

Thanks for help!