[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

XPath expression to return an attribute's value

• From: "Rachel D. Basse" <honestrosewater@c...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2007 04:43:35 -0500

Greetings. :^)

This question came up while using XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0. I'd like to root out any related, more general misunderstandings if possible.

Given

 <Root Attribute="Value"/>

I want to make an XPath path expression evaluate to the string "Value". So I want the XDM typed-value of the Attribute attribute, yes? Does XPath have a way to refer to the typed-valued of an attribute?

My first instinct was to refer to the child text node of Attribute, using "Attribute/text()", but that won't work since attributes have no children.

As I understand things, adding any predicate to an "Attribute" path expression won't work since the expression would still return an attribute node or nothing, and I want a string, neither an attribute node nor nothing.

I can apparently get what I want by casting the attribute node as a string, but I am wondering if there is another, more direct way.

Thanks for reading,
Rachel Basse

P.S. I am aware that I can also use xsl:value-of, but I specifically want an XPath expression to evaluate to an attribute's value.


Care2 make the world greener!

Stop the Forest Service from killing more wolves, bears, cougars, and other animals in the wild:
http://go.care2.com/99055

http://www.Care2.com  Free e-mail. 100MB storage.  Helps nonprofits. 

• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: XPath expression to return an attribute's value
    • From: "Michael Kay" <mike@s...>
  • Re: XPath expression to return an attribute's value
    • From: "Mukul Gandhi" <gandhi.mukul@g...>