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XPath Examples

    Examples

    Below are some simple examples that demonstrate the use of XPath. All examples are evaluated against the following XML:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Catalog>
    <Album artist="The Last Shadow Puppets" title="The Age Of The Understatement">
        <Track rating="4" length="P3M7S">The Age Of The Understatement</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P2M18S">Standing Next To Me</Track>
        <Track rating="5" length="P2M26S">Calm Like You</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P3M38S">Separate and Ever Deadly</Track>
        <Track rating="2" length="P2M37S">The Chamber</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P2M44S">Only The Truth</Track>
    </Album>
    <Album artist="Kings Of Leon" title="Because Of The Times">
        <Track rating="4" length="P7M10S">Knocked Up</Track>
        <Track rating="2" length="P2M57S">Charmer</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P3M21S">On Call</Track>
        <Track rating="4" length="P3M09S">McFearless</Track>
        <Track rating="1" length="P3M59S">Black Thumbnail</Track>
    </Album>
</Catalog>

    //Album

        <Album artist="The Last Shadow Puppets" title="The Age Of The Understatement">
        <Track rating="4" length="P3M7S">The Age Of The Understatement</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P2M18S">Standing Next To Me</Track>
        <Track rating="5" length="P2M26S">Calm Like You</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P3M38S">Separate and Ever Deadly</Track>
        <Track rating="2" length="P2M37S">The Chamber</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P2M44S">Only The Truth</Track>
    </Album>
    <Album artist="Kings Of Leon" title="Because Of The Times">
        <Track rating="4" length="P7M10S">Knocked Up</Track>
        <Track rating="2" length="P2M57S">Charmer</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P3M21S">On Call</Track>
        <Track rating="4" length="P3M09S">McFearless</Track>
        <Track rating="1" length="P3M59S">Black Thumbnail</Track>
    </Album>

    //Album/@title

         title="The Age Of The Understatement"
     title="Because Of The Times"

    //Album[@artist="Kings Of Leon"]

        <Album artist="Kings Of Leon" title="Because Of The Times">
        <Track rating="4" length="P7M10S">Knocked Up</Track>
        <Track rating="2" length="P2M57S">Charmer</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P3M21S">On Call</Track>
        <Track rating="4" length="P3M09S">McFearless</Track>
        <Track rating="1" length="P3M59S">Black Thumbnail</Track>
    </Album>

    //Track [../@artist='The Last Shadow Puppets']

            <Track rating="4" length="P3M7S">The Age Of The Understatement</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P2M18S">Standing Next To Me</Track>
        <Track rating="5" length="P2M26S">Calm Like You</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P3M38S">Separate and Ever Deadly</Track>
        <Track rating="2" length="P2M37S">The Chamber</Track>
        <Track rating="3" length="P2M44S">Only The Truth</Track>

    //Track [@rating >= 4]

            <Track rating="4" length="P3M7S">The Age Of The Understatement</Track>
        <Track rating="5" length="P2M26S">Calm Like You</Track>
        <Track rating="4" length="P7M10S">Knocked Up</Track>
        <Track rating="4" length="P3M09S">McFearless</Track>
        <Track rating="1" length="P3M59S">Black Thumbnail</Track>

    //Track/text()

            The Age Of The Understatement
        Standing Next To Me
        Calm Like You
        Separate and Ever Deadly
        The Chamber
        Only The Truth
        Knocked Up
        Charmer
        On Call
        McFearless
        Black Thumbnail

    How does this apply to Umbraco?

    In Umbraco, we usually apply these XPath expressions to a variable or parameter such as $currentPage, or a custom variable that contains an XML node set.

    To list all nodes below the current page that match nodeTypeAlias="Article", we could do the following:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [ <!ENTITY nbsp "&#x00A0;"> ]>
<xsl:stylesheet 
	version="1.0" 
	xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" 
	xmlns:msxml="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
	xmlns:umbraco.library="urn:umbraco.library" 
	exclude-result-prefixes="msxml umbraco.library ">

  <xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>

  <xsl:param name="currentPage"/>

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <ul>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="$currentPage//node [@nodeTypeAlias = 'Article']"/>
    </ul>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="node">
    <li>
      <xsl:value-of select="./@nodeName"/>
    </li>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

    For more information, see the following pages:

    - MSDN XPath Examples

    - knol XPath article - This is where the XML sample data came from