• Chapter 1: Getting Started with Stylus Studio
• Chapter 2: Editing and Querying XML
• Chapter 3: Converting Non-XML Files to XML
• Chapter 4: Working with XSLT
• Chapter 5: Creating XSLT Using the XSLT Mapper
• Chapter 6: Debugging Stylesheets
• Chapter 7: Defining XML Schemas
• Chapter 8: Defining Document Type Definitions
• Chapter 9: Writing XPath Expressions
  • About the XPath Processor
  • Sample Data for Examples and Testing
  • Getting Started with Queries
  • Specifying the Nodes to Evaluate
  • Handling Strings and Text
  • Specifying Boolean Expressions and Functions
  • Specifying Number Operations and Functions
  • Comparing Values
  • Finding a Particular Node
  • Obtaining a Union
  • Obtaining Information About a Node or a Node Set
  • Using XPath Expressions in Stylesheets
  • Accessing Other Documents During Query Execution
  • XPath Quick Reference
• Chapter 10: Working with XQuery in Stylus Studio
• Chapter 11: Composing Web Service Calls
• Chapter 12: Accessing Relational Data as XML
• Chapter 13: Extending Stylus Studio
• Chapter 14: Stylus Studio Reference

Home > Online Product Documentation > Table of Contents > Obtaining All Marked-Up Text

Obtaining All Marked-Up Text

When you query a document, you do not usually want to obtain all marked-up text. However, an understanding of queries that return all marked-up text makes it easier to define a query that retrieves just what you want.

The following figure shows a complete query ( /bookstore) and the way the XPath processor interprets it:

This query returns the bookstore element. Because the bookstore element is the document element, which contains all elements and attributes in the document, this query returns all marked-up text.

In the query, the initial forward slash (/) instructs the XPath processor to start its search at the root node.

Suppose you run the following query on bookstore.xml:

/book
               

            

This query returns an empty set. It searches the immediate children of the root node for an element named book. Because there is no such element, this query does not return any marked-up text. Note that this query does not return an error. The query runs successfully, but the XPath processor does not find any elements that match the query. All book elements are grandchildren of the root node, and the XPath processor only checks the children of the root node.