Searching for body element in an html not working

aldwinenriquez · August 26th, 2008, 12:40 AM

It seems that SelectSingle node does not work well with HTML documents loaded as XML.

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(@"c:\temp\layout.html");//load html as xml doc

//add namespace manager
XmlNamespaceManager man = new XmlNamespaceManager(doc.NameTable);
            man.AddNamespace(string.Empty, "http://wwww.w3.org/1999/xhtml");

XmlNode body = doc.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("//body",man);//also tried without namespace manager, but didn't work too.
if(body != null)
Console.WriteLine(body.OuterXml);

However when I do doc.DocumentElement["body"], it gives me the node.
What am I missing here?

Below is the HTML document:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
    <title>Untitled Page</title>
    <link href="workflow.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body>
        <div style="height: 100%; width: 100%; overflow: auto; text-align: center; padding-left: 20px;">
        <br />
        <table class="workflow_container">
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <div id="dvDevelop" class="workflow_active">

                    </div>
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <div class="down_arrow">
                         
                    </div>
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <div id="dvReview" class="workflow_disable">

                        </div>
                </td>
            </tr>
        </table>
        <div class="right_arrow">
             
        </div>
        <div id="dvContentQC" class="workflow_next">

            </div>
        <div class="right_arrow">
             
        </div>
        <div id="dvPublish" class="workflow_disable">

            </div>
    </div>
<p>
     </p>
<p>
     </p>
<p>
     </p>
<p>
     </p>
                    <div class="workflow_disable">
                        Approve
                        <table>
                            <tr>
                                <td>
                                    3<br />
                                    APP-00-102-11
                                    <br />
                                    Apr 12, 2007
                                </td>
                            </tr>
                        </table>
                    </div>
                </body>
</html>

samjudson · August 26th, 2008, 02:05 AM

1) I assume that the error above is in the url checking code on the forum, but the xhtml namespace is http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml.

2) Have you tried adding the namespace with a prefix (such as xhtml) and then using "//xhtml:body" ?

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

aldwinenriquez · August 26th, 2008, 06:48 PM

XmlNode body = doc.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("//body",man);
This always returns null.

"//xhtml:body" does not work either.

"Dont you ever give up!"

joefawcett · August 27th, 2008, 01:57 AM

Show the relevant code where you read the document and set up the NamespaceManager.

--

Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)

aldwinenriquez · August 27th, 2008, 06:38 PM

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(@"c:\temp\layout.html");//load html as xml doc

//add namespace manager
XmlNamespaceManager man = new XmlNamespaceManager(doc.NameTable);
man.AddNamespace(string.Empty, http://wwww.w3.org/1999/xhtml");
XmlNode body = doc.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("//body",man);//this is where I am searching for the node
if(body != null)
Console.WriteLine(body.OuterXml);

HTML document is available in the first post as inline text..

"Dont you ever give up!"

joefawcett · August 28th, 2008, 02:29 AM

Well you don't assign a prefix, string.Empty cannot be used. You need to use something like "xhtml" and use "//xhtml:body" as your XPath.
If that doesn't work then your HTML is not XHTML.

--

Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)

samjudson · August 28th, 2008, 03:26 AM

Joe, according to the docs String.Empty can be used to define the default namespace. Should this not work then?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...namespace.aspx

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

mhkay · August 28th, 2008, 03:46 AM

In XPath 1.0 "//body" means "find body elements in no namespace", not "find body elements in the default namespace". So setting the default namespace should make no difference.

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

joefawcett · August 28th, 2008, 05:56 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by samjudson
Joe, according to the docs String.Empty can be used to define the default namespace. Should this not work then?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...namespace.aspx

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

It can be used to define the default namespace but that doesn't help you use it in XPath so I'm not sure what use that is.

--

Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)