Hi! I'm new to XML and we are using an application that use XPath 1.0 and I need some help to refer to "vdata 2" from below code

<ns1:message>
<ns1:msgtype>hello</ns1:msgtype>
 <ns1:route>
  <ns1:param>pdata 1</ns1:param>
  <ns1:value>vdata 1</ns1:value>
  <ns1:param>pdata 2</ns1:param>
  <ns1:value>vdata 2</ns1:value>
 </ns1:route>
</ns1:message>

I know how to get there using absolute reference like

/ns1:message/ns1:route/ns1:value[2]/text()

And the solution I'm working on does not use namespace. So I need to use //node() and local-name() construct as below
//node()[local-name()='msgtype']/text().

Please help build the XPath expression using node() and local-name() to get to the second instance of value in the ns1:route block.

Thanks

If you are using XSLT 2.0 then you can do the following:

/*:message/*:route/*:value[2]/text()

If not then you seem to have all the information you need above (and give examples of how to do what you asK0 so I'm not sure what the problem is?

You can put to predicates together like so:

/ns1:message/ns1:route/node()[local-name()='value'][2]/text()

I'm also confused by what you mean by 'doesn't use namespace'. Does this mean you don't know what the namespace will be, or are you worried you don't know what the prefix will be? The prefix is only a shorthand for the namespace, and will match based on the namespace the prefix stands for, not the actual prefix. e.g. if you example above ns1 was the namespace "http://test1.com" then the following would work:

<xsl:value-of xslns:my="http://test1.com" select="//my:message"/>

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

If you are using an application, like BizTalk, that doesn't have the facility to set namespace to prefix mappings then you can use a combination of local-name() and namespace-uri(). If ns1 is mapped to http://tempuri.com for example:
--

Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the quick reply! Much appreciated.

Sorry for the confusion there. Yes, I meant 'prefix' and not namespace.

The Xpath expression that I'm trying to build here will be stored in a column in a db table and will be read back by an application where the Xpath expression will be checked against the XML to derive "vdata 2"

We are using XPath 1 and XSLT 1, unfortunately.

I tried your solution as below

//node()[local-name()='value'][2]/text()='vdata 2'

And I got what I wanted.

I was really lost in placing the [ ] in the main predicate and the [] for the position.

Many thanks!!! :)