Tag Archives: XSLT

.NET and matching element name with wildcard using XPath

Posted on by

This is similar to matching a name space with a wildcard.

'This is the node we are searching in
Dim someXmlNode As XmlNode = FetchXmlNode() 
Dim xPathExpr As String = String.Empty
 
'find all nodes with names that starts with nisse_
xPathExpr = ".//*[starts-with(name(), 'nisse_')]"
 
'loop through all elements that matches our XPath
For Each elementWithNisse As XmlNode In someXmlNode.SelectNodes(xPathExpr)
 
    AndHereAMiracleHappens(elementWithNisse)
 
Next

.NET and matching namespace with wildcard using XPath

Posted on by

.NET framework’s XslCompiledTransform only supports XPath and XSLT 1.0.

With XPath 1.0 ‘*’ is allowed to select all elements and nisse:* is allowed to select all elements in the namespace bound to the prefix ‘nisse’ but *:nisse to select ‘nisse’ elements in all
namespaces is not allowed in XPath 1.0, see http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath#node-tests.

And here is an example in vb.net where InnerText is read from the nameOfElementToFind in any name space

' This is the xmlnode the search is done with
Dim node As XmlNode = FetchSomeNode()
 
Dim innerTextFromNode As String = String.Empty
Dim xPathToSearchFor As String = String.Empty
 
'Will find all direct decendants nameOfElementToFind in any name space
xPathToSearchFor = "*[local-name() 'nameOfElementToFind']" 
 
'Will find all nameOfElementToFind in any name space and anywhere under this node
xPathToSearchFor = ".//*[local-name() 'nameOfElementToFind']" 
 
'Will find all nameOfElementToFind in any name space and anywhere in the document the node belongs to
xPathToSearchFor = "//*[local-name() 'nameOfElementToFind']"
 
If (node IsNot Nothing) Then
	innerTextFromNode = node.selectSingleNode(xPathToSearchIn).InnerText
End If