• 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 Particular Types of Nodes By Using Node Tests

Obtaining Particular Types of Nodes By Using Node Tests

The node tests allow you to obtain nodes according to their type. Node test is an XPath term. Although a node test looks like a function, it is not a function.

You can use node tests with filters and position specifiers. They resolve to the set of children of the context node that meets the restrictions you specify.

Node tests for XPath 2.0 add to the set of node tests supported for XPath 1.0. Node tests common to both XPath 1.0 and XPath 2.0 are shown in Table 58. Node tests unique to XPath 2.0 are shown in Table 58.

comment()
               

            

node()
               

            

processing-
instruction("name") 
               

            

text()
               

            

attribute()
               

            

document-node()
               

            

element()
               

            

item()
               

            

For each p element in the current context, the following query returns its second text child node:

p/text()[2] 
               

            

Following is a query that finds the third comment child in each foo element anywhere in the document:

//foo/comment()[3]
               

            

About the Document Object

In the Document Object Model (DOM), a document contains comments, processing instructions, and declarations, as well as the document element. As in XPath, the root node is the root of the DOM tree, and the root node is not the same as the document element. This allows comments, declarations, and processing instructions at the document entity level.

For example, the following query finds all comments at the document entity level. In other words, it finds all comments that are immediate children of the root node.

/comment() 
               

            

This query returns the comment at the beginning of the bookstore.xml file:

Getting Nodes of a Particular Type

A query like the following returns all the comments in a document:

//comment()
               

            

The following query returns the third comment in the document.

(//comment()) [3]