XPath Introduction
XPath is a language for finding information in XML documents.
Knowledge you should have before learning:
Before you continue, you should have a basic understanding of the following:
- HTML / XHTML
- XML / XML Namespaces
If you wish to learn these items first, please visit these tutorials on ourhomepageto visit these tutorials.
What is XPath?
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XPath Path Expressions
XPath uses path expressions to select nodes or node sets in XML documents. These path expressions are very similar to the expressions you see in regular computer file systems.
XPath Standard Functions
XPath contains over 100 built-in functions. These functions are used for string values, numeric values, date and time comparison, node and QName processing, sequence processing, boolean values, and more.
XPath Used in XSLT
XPath is a major element in the XSLT standard. Without knowledge of XPath, you cannot create XSLT documents.
You can read more in ourXSLT Tutorialfor more content.
Both XQuery and XPointer are built on XPath expressions. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 share the same data model and support the same functions and operators.
You can read more about XQuery in ourXQuery Tutorialto learn more about XQuery.
XPath is a W3C Standard
XPath became a W3C Standard on November 16, 1999.
XPath was designed to be used by XSLT, XPointer, and other XML parsing software.
You can read more information about XPath standards in ourW3C Tutorialfor more information about the XPath standard.
Other Extensions