xpath (next)

DOM 3 XPath 1.0 implemention and helper for JavaScript, with Node.js and Shadow DOM support.

Originally written by Cameron McCormack (blog).

Additional contributions from Yaron Naveh (blog) goto100 Thomas Weinert Jimmy Rishe and others

Further modifications by Nikhil Verma

• Support Shadow DOM
• Use ES6 module syntax

Install

Install with npm:

npm install xpath-next

xpath is xml engine agnostic but we recommend xmldom:

npm install xmldom

API Documentation

Can be found here. See below for example usage.

Your first xpath

var xpath = require("xpath"),
	dom = require("xmldom").DOMParser;

var xml = "<book><title>Harry Potter</title></book>";
var doc = new dom().parseFromString(xml);
var nodes = xpath.select("//title", doc);

console.log(nodes[0].localName + ": " + nodes[0].firstChild.data);
console.log("Node: " + nodes[0].toString());

➡

title: Harry Potter
Node: <title>Harry Potter</title>

Alternatively

Using the same interface you have on modern browsers (MDN)

var node = null;
var xml = "<book author='J. K. Rowling'><title>Harry Potter</title></book>";
var doc = new dom().parseFromString(xml);
var result = xpath.evaluate(
	"/book/title", // xpathExpression
	doc, // contextNode
	null, // namespaceResolver
	xpath.XPathResult.ANY_TYPE, // resultType
	null // result
);

node = result.iterateNext();
while (node) {
	console.log(node.localName + ": " + node.firstChild.data);
	console.log("Node: " + node.toString());

	node = result.iterateNext();
}

➡

title: Harry Potter
Node: <title>Harry Potter</title>

Evaluate string values directly

var xml = "<book><title>Harry Potter</title></book>";
var doc = new dom().parseFromString(xml);
var title = xpath.select("string(//title)", doc);

console.log(title);

➡

Harry Potter

Namespaces

var xml = "<book><title xmlns='myns'>Harry Potter</title></book>";
var doc = new dom().parseFromString(xml);
var node = xpath.select("//*[local-name(.)='title' and namespace-uri(.)='myns']", doc)[0];

console.log(node.namespaceURI);

➡

myns

Namespaces with easy mappings

var xml =
	"<book xmlns:bookml='http://example.com/book'><bookml:title>Harry Potter</bookml:title></book>";
var select = xpath.useNamespaces({ bookml: "http://example.com/book" });

console.log(select("//bookml:title/text()", doc)[0].nodeValue);

➡

Harry Potter

Default namespace with mapping

var xml = "<book xmlns='http://example.com/book'><title>Harry Potter</title></book>";
var select = xpath.useNamespaces({ bookml: "http://example.com/book" });

console.log(select("//bookml:title/text()", doc)[0].nodeValue);

➡

Harry Potter

Attributes

var xml = "<book author='J. K. Rowling'><title>Harry Potter</title></book>";
var doc = new dom().parseFromString(xml);
var author = xpath.select1("/book/@author", doc).value;

console.log(author);

➡

J. K. Rowling

License

MIT