XQuery

Predicates

Predicates are used in a path expression to filter the results to contain only nodes that meet specific criteria. Using a predicate, you can, for example, select only the elements that have a certain value for an attribute or child element, using a predicate like [@dept = "ACC"]. You can also select only elements that have a particular attribute child element, using a predicate such as [color], or elements that occur in a particular position within their parent, using a predicate such as [3].

The syntax of a predicate is simply an expression in square brackets ([ and ]). Table 4-6 shows some examples of predicates.

Table 4-6. Predicates (examples start with doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/)

Example	Meaning
product[name = "Floppy Sun Hat"]	All product elements that have a name child whose value is equal to Floppy Sun Hat
product[number < 500]	All product elements that have a number child whose value is less than 500
product[@dept = "ACC"]	All product elements that have a dept attribute whose value is ACC
product[desc]	All product elements that have at least one desc child
product[@dept]	All product elements that have a dept attribute
product[@dept]/number	All number children of product elements that have a dept attribute

If the expression evaluates to anything other than a number, its effective Boolean value is determined. This means that if it evaluates to the xs:boolean value false, the number 0 or NaN, a zero-length string, or the empty sequence, it is considered false. In most other cases, it is considered true. If the effective Boolean value is true for a particular node, that node is returned. If it is false, the node is not returned.

If the expression evaluates to a number, it is interpreted as the position as described in "Using Positions in Predicates" later in this chapter.

As you can see from the last example, the predicate is not required to appear at the end of the path expression; it can appear at the end of any step.

Note that product[number] is different from product/number. While both expressions filter out products that have no number child, in the former expression, the product element is returned. In the latter case, the number element is returned.

Comparisons in Predicates

The examples in the previous section use general comparison operators like = and <. You can also use the corresponding value comparison operators, such as eq and lt, but you should be aware of the difference. Value comparison operators only allow a single value, while general comparison operators allow sequences of zero, one, or more values. Therefore, the path expression:

doc("prices.xml")//priceList[@effDate eq '2006-11-15']

is acceptable, because each priceList element can have only one effDate attribute. However, if you wanted to find all the priceList elements that contain the product 557, you might try the expression:

doc("prices.xml")//priceList[prod/@num eq 557]

This will raise an error because the expression prod/@num returns more than one value per priceList. By contrast:

doc("prices.xml")//priceList[prod/@num = 557]

returns a priceList if it has at least one prod child whose num attribute is equal to 557. It might have other prod children whose numbers are not equal to 557.

In both cases, if a particular priceList does not have any prod children with num attributes, it does not return that priceList, but it does not raise an error.

Another difference is that value comparison operators treat all untyped data like strings. If we fixed the previous problem with eq by returning prod nodes instead, as in:

doc("prices.xml")//priceList/prod[@num eq 557]

it would still raise an error if no schema were present, because it treats the num attribute like a string, which can't be compared to a number. The = operator, on the other hand, will cast the value of the num attribute to xs:integer and then compare it to 557, as you would expect.

For these reasons, general comparison operators are easier to use than value comparison operators in predicates when children are untyped or repeating. The down side of general comparison operators is that they also make it less likely that the processor will catch any mistakes you make. In addition, they may be more expensive to evaluate because it's harder for the processor to make use of indexes.

Using Positions in Predicates

Another use of predicates is to specify the numeric position of an item within the sequence of items currently being processed. These are sometimes called, predictably, positional predicates. For example, if you want the fourth product in the catalog, you can specify:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[4]

Any predicate expression that evaluates to an integer will be considered a positional predicate. If you specify a number that is greater than the number of items in the context sequence, it does not raise an error; it simply does not return any nodes. For example:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[99]

returns the empty sequence.

Understanding positional predicates

With positional predicates, it is important to understand that the position is the position within the current sequence of items being processed, not the position of an element relative to its parent's children. Consider the expression:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product/name[1]

This expression refers to the first name child of each product; the step name[1] is evaluated once for every product element. It does not necessarily mean that the name element is the first child of product.

It also does not return the first name element that appears in the document as a whole. If you wanted just the first name element in the document, you could use the expression:

(doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product/name)[1]

because the parentheses change the order of evaluation. First, all the name elements are returned; then, the first one of those is selected. Alternatively, you could use:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/descendant::name[1]

because the sequence of descendants is evaluated first, then the predicate is applied. However, this is different from the abbreviated expression:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog//name[1]

which, like the first example, returns the first name child of each of the products. That's because it's an abbreviation for:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/descendant-or-self::node( )/name[1]

The position and last functions

The position and last functions are also useful when writing predicates based on position. The position function returns the position of the context item within the context sequence (the current sequence of items being processed). The function takes no arguments and returns an integer representing the position (starting with 1, not 0) of the context item. For example:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[position( ) < 3]

returns the first two product children of catalog. You could also select the first two children of each product, with any name, using:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product/*[position( ) < 3]

by using the wildcard *. Note that the predicate [position( ) = 3] is equivalent to the predicate [3], so the position function is not very useful in this case.

Warning

When using positional predicates, you should be aware that the to keyword does not work as you might expect when used in predicates. If you want the first three products, it may be tempting to use the syntax:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[1 to 3]

However, this will raise an error^[*] because the predicate evaluates to multiple numbers instead of a single one. You can, however, use the syntax:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[position( ) = (1 to 3)]

You can also use the subsequence function to limit the results based on position, as in:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/subsequence(product, 1, 3)

The last function returns the number of nodes in the current sequence. It takes no arguments and returns an integer representing the number of items. The last function is useful for testing whether an item is the last one in the sequence. For example, catalog/product[last( )] returns the last product child of catalog.

Table 4-7 shows some examples of predicates that use the position of the item. The descriptions assume that there is only one catalog element, which is the case in the catalog.xml example.

Table 4-7. Position in predicates (examples start with doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/)

Example	Description
product[2]	The second product child of catalog
product[position( ) = 2]	The second product child of catalog
product[position( ) > 1]	All product children of catalog after the first one
product[last( )−1]	The second to last product child of catalog
product[last( )]	The last product child of catalog
*[2]	The second child of catalog, regardless of name
product[3]/*[2]	The second child of the third product child of catalog

In XQuery, it's very unusual to use the position or last functions anywhere except within a predicate. It's not an error, however, as long as the context item is defined. For example, a/last( ) returns the same number as count(a).

Positional predicates and reverse axes

Oddly, positional predicates have the opposite meaning when using reverse axes such as ancestor, ancestor-or-self, preceding, or preceding-sibling. These axes, like all axes, return nodes in document order. For example, the expression:

doc("catalog.xml")//i/ancestor::*

returns the ancestors of the i element in document order, namely the catalog element, followed by the fourth product element, followed by the desc element. However, if you use a positional predicate, as in:

doc("catalog.xml")//i/ancestor::*[1]

you might expect to get the catalog element, but you will actually get the nearest ancestor, the desc element. The expression:

doc("catalog.xml")//i/ancestor::*[last( )]

will give you the catalog element.

Using Multiple Predicates

Multiple predicates can be chained together to filter items based on more than one constraint. For example:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[number < 500][@dept = "ACC"]

selects only product elements with a number child whose value is less than 500 and whose dept attribute is equal to ACC. This can also be equivalently expressed as:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[number < 500 and @dept = "ACC"]

It is sometimes useful to combine the positional predicates with other predicates, as in:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[@dept = "ACC"][2]

which represents "the second product child that has a dept attribute whose value is ACC," namely the third product element. The order of the predicates is significant. If the previous example is changed to:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[2][@dept = "ACC"]

it means something different, namely "the second product child, if it has a dept attribute whose value is ACC." This is because the predicate changes the context, and the context node for the second predicate in this case is the second product element.

More Complex Predicates

So far, the examples of predicates have been simple path expressions, comparison expressions, and numbers. In fact, any expression is allowed in a predicate, making it a very flexible construct. For example, predicates can contain function calls, as in:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[contains(@dept, "A")]

which returns all product children whose dept attribute contains the letter A. They can contain conditional expressions, as in:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[if ($descFilter)
                                   then desc else true( )]

which filters product elements based on their desc child only if the variable $descFilter is true. They can also contain expressions that combine sequences, as in:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[* except number]

which returns all product children that have at least one child other than number. General comparisons with multiple values can be used, as in:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[@dept = ("ACC", "WMN", "MEN")]

which returns products whose dept attribute value is any of those three values. This is similar to a SQL "in" clause.

To retrieve every third product child of catalog, you could use the expression:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[position( ) mod 3 = 0]

because it selects all the products whose position is divisible by 3.

Predicates can even contain path expressions that themselves have predicates. For example:

doc("catalog.xml")/catalog/product[*[3][self::colorChoices]]

can be used to find all product elements whose third child element is colorChoices. The *[3][self::colorChoices] is part of a separate path expression that is itself within a predicate. *[3] selects the third child element of product, and [self::colorChoices] is a way of testing the name of the current context element.

Predicates are not limited to use with path expressions. They can be used with any sequence. For example:

(1 to 100)[. mod  5 = 0]

can be used to return the integers from 1 to 100 that are divisible by 5. Another example is:

 (@price, 0.0)[1]

which selects the price attribute if it exists, or the decimal value 0.0 otherwise.

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^[*] Although several implementations erroneously support this construct.