XPath

External

• https://www.baeldung.com/linux/evaluate-xpath
• https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xpath_intro.asp
• https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xpath_syntax.asp

Internal

• XML
• XSL

Overview

XPath is a specification language that allows specifying parts of an XML structure. It is part of XSL. An XPath expression can be thought as an address of a part of an XML document.

TODO: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/jaxp/xslt/xpath.html

Command Line Tooling

• XMLStarlet
• xmllint
• xidel
• xpath

Java Support

https://www.baeldung.com/java-xpath

Syntax

https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xpath_syntax.asp

Example

<books>
    <book id="1" category="linux">
        <title lang="en">Linux Device Drivers</title>
        <year>2003</year>
        <author>Jonathan Corbet</author>
        <author>Alessandro Rubini</author>
    </book>
    <book id="2" category="linux">
        <title lang="en">Understanding the Linux Kernel</title>
        <year>2005</year>
        <author>Daniel P. Bovet</author>
        <author>Marco Cesati</author>
    </book>
    <book id="3" category="novel">
        <title lang="en">A Game of Thrones</title>
        <year>2013</year>
        <author>George R. R. Martin</author>
    </book>
    <book id="4" category="novel">
        <title lang="fr">The Little Prince</title>
        <year>1990</year>
        <author>Antoine de Saint-Exupéry</author>
    </book>
</books>

Node Selection

XPath uses path expressions to select nodes in an XML document. The node is selected by following a path (or steps):

nodename

Select the node (or nodes) with the given nodename. If multiple nodes with the same node match, they're all selected.

xml sel -t -v "/books/book/title" ./books.xml

returns:

Linux Device Drivers
Understanding the Linux Kernel
A Game of Thrones
The Little Prince

/

Select from the root node.

xml sel -t -v "/books/book/title" ./books.xml

returns:

Linux Device Drivers
Understanding the Linux Kernel
A Game of Thrones
The Little Prince

//

Selects nodes in the document from the current node that match the selection no matter where they are/

xml sel -t -v "//title" ./books.xml

returns:

Linux Device Drivers
Understanding the Linux Kernel
A Game of Thrones
The Little Prince

.

Selects the current node

..

Selects the parent of the current node

@

Selects attributes.

Queries

Full Path Queries

/level-1-element-name/level-2-element-name/...

Recursive Queries

Recursive query based on element name:

//element-name<selector>

Element Selection

element-name[@attribute-name='value']

element-name[sub-element-expression]