What is meaning of .// in XPath?
Question
I know absolute XPath will return the inspected node from root node in XML tree.
But I am not able to understand the meaning of .// used in XPath to inspect/find a node.
1 answers
solution1
11 ACCPTED 2015-07-13 03:45:29
. is the current node; it is short for self::node() .
// is the descendant-or-self axis; it is short for /descendant-or-self::node()/ .
Together, .// will select along the descendent-or-self axis starting from the current node. Contrast this with // which starts at the document root.
Example
Consider the following HTML:
<html>
<body>
<div id="id1">
<p>First paragraph</p>
<div>
<p>Second paragraph</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Third paragraph</p>
</body>
</html>
//p will select all paragraphs:
<p>First paragraph</p>
<p>Second paragraph</p>
<p>Third paragraph</p>
On the other hand, if the current node is at the div element (with @id of "id1" ), then .//p will select only the paragraphs under the current node :
<p>First paragraph</p>
<p>Second paragraph</p>
Notice that the third paragraph is not selected by .//p when the current node is the id1 div because the third paragraph is not under that div element.
The technical post webpages of this site follow the CC BY-SA 4.0 protocol. If you need to reprint, please indicate the site URL or the original address.Any question please contact:yoyou2525@163.com.