Re: Basic question about Namespace handling in XPath 1

Regards,
Prakash

See the method setNamespaceContext() method on the interface
javax.xml.xpath.XPath.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: Prakash [mailto:prakash.subramaniam@xxxxxxxxxx] Sent: 28 September 2005 15:12
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Basic question about Namespace handling in XPath 1.0 (not necessarily related to XSLT)

Thanks Geert.

My question is not in relation to XSLT. I was talking about the namespace prefix resolution in general for XPath. For example, in Java, JAXP 1.3 has some APIs to process XPath given a context ( likewise DOM Level 3 has some APIs). These APIs are application independent. I guess, the namespace mappings available in scope to the context node will be the deciding factor, right?. Pls, correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks,
Prakash

Geert Josten wrote:

Hi,

The answer should be pretty clear, it all depends on how

you declare

the namespaces in your XSL stylesheet... :)

1. If we have a XPath like "//sup:name", how will the

XPath processor

know which "sup:name" will have to be returned? (considering that there are two sup:name elements that are in two different

namespaces.

<xsl:value-of select="//sup:name"

xmlns:sup="http://www.suppliers.com"

/> will result in the first one.

<xsl:value-of select="//sup:name" xmlns:sup="http://www.anothersuppliers.com" /> will result in the second one.

You will probably choose to assing prefix sup1 to the first

namespace

and sup2 to the second. If you want both, you can then

simply specify

//sup1:name|//sup2:name (or //*:name in XSLT 2.0 altogether)

2. Similarly, if we have a XPath such as "//order", which "order" will be considered considering that there are two order

elements both

in default namespace (first order element is actually in null namespace whereas the second one in default namespace

declared in the

root element)

Likewise. I expect that //order results in the first when you don't specify a default namespace, and in the second if you use xmlns="http://www.customers.com".

It is adviced not to use default namespaces in XSL

stylesheets, though.

Cheers,
Geert