1

I'm using a library method for xpath evaluation (apache commons-text's XmlStringLookup) that sets the DocumentBuilderFactory's namespace awareness to true and I can't change that. I need to query a pom.xml file with this, that has a default namespace with no prefix: 

   <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" ...>
     <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
   ...

I would want to be able to query just like: 

 /project/modelVersion

but because of the namespace awareness, the results come out empty. I know I can use something like : 

//*[local-name()="project"] ...

but that's just cumbersome. The question is: is there any Xpath syntax to query namespaces without prefix? Something like: 

/:project/:modelVersion
Chirlo
  • 5,989
  • 1
  • 29
  • 45

2 Answers2

1

Within XPath, no, there is no alternative syntax that ignores namespaces, default or otherwise, other than testing against local-name() (all versions) or *:NCName (XPath 2.0 and later).

Within XPath, there also is no mechanism for binding namespace prefixes to namespaces. For a list of namespace prefix binding mechanisms that are available in various hosting languages and libraries, see How does XPath deal with XML namespaces?

kjhughes
  • 106,133
  • 27
  • 181
  • 240
1

If you move to XPath 3.1 (as delivered through Saxon 10.0), then

(a) /*:project will retrieve an element with local name project, in any namespace (or none)

(b) /Q{http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0}project will retrieve an element with local name project in the specified namespace, with no need to declare namespace prefixes externally

(c) The Saxon API allows you to call XPathCompiler.declareNamespace("", "http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"), after which /project selects an element in this namespace.

Michael Kay
  • 156,231
  • 11
  • 92
  • 164