Learning XML

6.2. Selecting Nodes

To do anything sophisticated in XSLT, we have to move around the document as nimbly as a monkey in the forest. At all times, we need to know exactly where we are and where we're going next. We also have to be able to select a group of nodes for processing with utmost precision. These navigation skills are provided by XPath,^[1] a sophisticated language for marking locations and selecting sets of nodes within a document.

^[1] The XPath language is a W3C recommendation. Version 1.0 was ratified in November 1999.

6.2.1. Location Paths

Location is an important concept in XML navigation. In XSLT we often have to describe the location of a node or group of nodes somewhere in a document. XPath calls this description a location path. A good example of this is the match attribute of <xsl:template>, which specifies a path to a group of nodes for the rule to process. Though the examples we've seen so far are simple, location paths can be quite sophisticated.

Location paths come in two flavors: absolute and relative. Absolute paths begin at a fixed reference point, namely the root node. In contrast, relative paths begin at a variable point that we call a context node.

A location path consists of a series of steps, each of which carries the path further from the starting point. A step itself has three parts: an axis that describes the direction to travel, a node test that specifies what kinds of nodes are applicable, and a set of optional predicates that use ...