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Re: xpath: which is right?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: xpath: which is right?
• From: "G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@C...>
• Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2004 14:02:21 -0500
• In-reply-to: <39CA7AD8-859A-11D8-9E28-000A95CDF1FE@i...>

At 2004-04-03 20:10 +0200, Suzan Foster wrote:
>Taking the following XML:
>
>  <foo>
>     <bar id="1" />
>     <bar id="2" />
>     <bar id="3" />
>     <fu />
>   </foo>
>
>which value should be returned by the xpath:
>
>preceding::bar[1]/@id
>
>libxslt says 3, whilst XML::XPath says 1.

If your current node is the <fu/> element node, then the answer is "3".

All axes are traversed in a step in proximity order, so the preceding axis 
is traversed in reverse document order, so the closest one is the one with 
id="3".

Note the different answer with "(preceding::bar)[1]/@id" which is "1" 
because the set of nodes in the parens is addressed by XSLT in document order.

I hope this helps.

.................. Ken

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  • xpath: which is right?
    • From: Suzan Foster <su@i...>

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