From http://www.w3schools.com (Copyright Refsnes Data)
We will use the following XML document in the examples below.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <bookstore> <book> <title lang="eng">Harry Potter</title> <price>29.99</price> </book> <book> <title lang="eng">Learning XML</title> <price>39.95</price> </book> </bookstore> |
An axis defines a node-set relative to the current node.
| AxisName | Result |
| ancestor | Selects all ancestors (parent, grandparent, etc.) of the current node |
| ancestor-or-self | Selects all ancestors (parent, grandparent, etc.) of the current node and the current node itself |
| attribute | Selects all attributes of the current node |
| child | Selects all children of the current node |
| descendant | Selects all descendants (children, grandchildren, etc.) of the current node |
| descendant-or-self | Selects all descendants (children, grandchildren, etc.) of the current node and the current node itself |
| following | Selects everything in the document after the closing tag of the current node |
| following-sibling | Selects all siblings after the current node |
| namespace | Selects all namespace nodes of the current node |
| parent | Selects the parent of the current node |
| preceding | Selects everything in the document that is before the start tag of the current node |
| preceding-sibling | Selects all siblings before the current node |
| self | Selects the current node |
A location path can be absolute or relative.
An absolute location path starts with a slash ( / ) and a relative location path does not. In both cases the location path consists of one or more steps, each separated by a slash:
An absolute location path: /step/step/... A relative location path: step/step/... |
Each step is evaluated against the nodes in the current node-set.
A step consists of:
The syntax for a location step is:
axisname::nodetest[predicate] |
| Example | Result |
| child::book | Selects all book nodes that are children of the current node |
| attribute::lang | Selects the lang attribute of the current node |
| child::* | Selects all children of the current node |
| attribute::* | Selects all attributes of the current node |
| child::text() | Selects all text child nodes of the current node |
| child::node() | Selects all child nodes of the current node |
| descendant::book | Selects all book descendants of the current node |
| ancestor::book | Selects all book ancestors of the current node |
| ancestor-or-self::book | Selects all book ancestors of the current node - and the current as well if it is a book node |
| child::*/child::price | Selects all price grandchildren of the current node |
From http://www.w3schools.com (Copyright Refsnes Data)