Re: trouble with preceding axis

<root>
  <apple/>
  <pear/>
  <orange/>
</root>

If you want to select the preceding <item> element of the <item> element
whose child <label> element satisfies the predicate [label =
'subTitle'], you might try the following XPath expression,

//item[label = 'subTitle']/preceding::item

Lisa

-----Original Message-----
From: Duane Gran [mailto:duane.gran@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 10:35 AM
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:  trouble with preceding axis

I'm having some trouble using the preceding axis in XPath and would
be much obliged if someone could steer me in the right direction.  I
have the following document:

<root>
   <item order="3">
     <label>Title</label>
   </item>
   <item order="4">
     <label>subTitle</label>
   </item>
</root>

I have the following XPath to select the second item, based on the
value of its label child:

//item[label = 'subTitle']

Now I want to modify this so that I refer to the preceding item
element, the first one in the list.  I tried the following without
success (it returns the second item element):

//preceding::item[label = 'subTitle']

Suggestions are most welcome on this.

Duane