Xml – XPath: How to check if an attribute exists

xmlxpath

Given the following XML, how do I write an XPath query to pull nodes where the attribute foo exists?:

<node1>
  <node2>
    <node3 foo='bar'></node3>
    <node3></node3>
    <node3 bar='foo'></node3>
    <node3 foo='foobar'></node3>
  </node2>
</node1>

Best Answer

Short and sweet:

//*[@foo]

Of course you should use a more specific expression. But with [@attributeName] you get all nodes which have that attribute.

Related Solutions

Xml – the correct XPath for choosing attributes that contain “foo”

//a[contains(@prop,'Foo')]

Works if I use this XML to get results back.

<bla>
 <a prop="Foo1">a</a>
 <a prop="Foo2">b</a>
 <a prop="3Foo">c</a>
 <a prop="Bar">a</a>
</bla>

Edit: Another thing to note is that while the XPath above will return the correct answer for that particular xml, if you want to guarantee you only get the "a" elements in element "bla", you should as others have mentioned also use

/bla/a[contains(@prop,'Foo')]

This will search you all "a" elements in your entire xml document, regardless of being nested in a "blah" element

//a[contains(@prop,'Foo')]

I added this for the sake of thoroughness and in the spirit of stackoverflow. :)

XPath find if node exists

<xsl:if test="xpath-expression">...</xsl:if>

so for example

<xsl:if test="/html/body">body node exists</xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="not(/html/body)">body node missing</xsl:if>

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Xml – the correct XPath for choosing attributes that contain “foo”

XPath find if node exists

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