Hello, I have a problem. I would like to search certain word from xml. For example:

I would like to search "black". And in XML file there is value "black board". But it does not appear.

Does anyone know how to solve it?

I mean when I type "black", the "black board" also appear...

You can use XPath to search for elements containing that word 'black':
//*[contains(., 'black')]

--
  Martin Honnen
  Microsoft MVP - XML

If you want to make sure you find the element(s) containing the word 'black' but exclude any ancestor element(s) of those then use
//*[contains(., 'black') and not(*[contains(., 'black')])]

--
  Martin Honnen
  Microsoft MVP - XML

I use Xpath...

Here is my Xpath:

path="form/description[contains(<%= request.Form("search_by")%>='<%= request.Form("txtSearch")%>')]//*";

I try to use "contains" but it does not work

Here is my XML(description2.xml):

<form>
    <description>
        <desc_id>048/26/SMD/HRD/9/00</desc_id>
        <title>Kebijakan2</title>
        <dates>3/21/1999</dates>
        <author>Smart Co</author>
        <file_name>Policy2</file_name>
        <type>pdf</type>
        <category>memorandum</category>
        <status>tidak_berlaku</status>
        <year>1983</year>
    </description>
</form>

What "does not work" mean exactly, do you get an error, if so which one? And tell us exactly which XPath API (e.g. .NET or Java or PHP) you are using.

What you currently show is a mixture of ASP and some other code, can you show us the final XPath expression without the ASP code? I suspect you need a comma between those two ASP expressions e.g.
form/description[contains(title, 'Keb')]
not an equal ('=') sign.

--
  Martin Honnen
  Microsoft MVP - XML

Think for a moment what you will produce there - for example say search_by is 'title' and txtSearch = 'fred' this will produce the following xpath:

path = "form/description[contains(title='fred')]//*";

Now if you do a quick search on the contains() xpath function (e.g. search google, or look it up at w3school.com) you will realise that contains takes two parameters, so title and 'fred' probably shouldn't have the '=' symbol between them, but perhaps a comma instead.

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

The syntax is

contains(title, 'xyz')

whereas your ASP code is generating

contains(title='xyz')

Also, you really need to think about preventing injection attacks. For example (after you correct the above mistake), typing

')]/system-property('java.user

into the form would give the expression

form/description[contains(title, '')]/system-property('java.user')[1]

which might well reveal the username of the account under which the XSLT processor is running.

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

Does not work means there is no error but it appears nothing.

I get "title" from the text field by using ASP to get it. So, it works not only for "title" but also author or dates or the other.

When I use your XML sample with the following JScript code

var doc = new ActiveXObject('Msxml2.DOMDocument.3.0');
doc.async = false;
if (doc.load('file.xml')) {
  doc.setProperty('SelectionLanguage', 'XPath');
  var descs = doc.selectNodes('form/description[contains(title, \'bij\')]');
  WScript.Echo(descs.length);
}
else {
  WScript.Echo(doc.parseError.reason);
}

run with cscript on Windows then it outputs 1 so it finds the description element.

You will need to show us your code so that we can find out why you get no result.

--
  Martin Honnen
  Microsoft MVP - XML

example: Type=black board


How if I want to get the value (e.g. "black") from the textfield and do not type word "black" inside the code?

and I also want to get the "type" from the textfield. So, it can change depends on the user who will insert.


Here is my Xpath:

path="form/description[<%= request.Form("search_by")%>='<%= request.Form("txtSearch")%>']//*";

the error said that unexpected "=" but when I refresh again, it shows the value.