Special Edition Using XML, Second Edition

XPath Functions

Version 1 of the XPath Recommendation provides a Core Function Library. The various functions provided in that library are described in this section.

XPath functions can return a data type that is one of the four XPath data types—node-set, boolean, string, or number.

Context Functions

Context functions say something specifically about the current context or in relation to the current context as a starting point.

The last() Function

The last() function is typically used in a predicate within a location path. It selects the last node in the current node list.

<Result> 
<First>John Doe</First>
<Second>Jane Doe</Second>
<Third>Robert Kennedy</Third>
</Result>

If the result element node was the context node and the path expression ...