Defining namespace prefixes for the Xpath evaluator

[beleta]

If an XML document has default namespace:

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xmlns="something"

there is no way to match unprefixed elements (from the default namespace) using the standalone XPath evaluator, and most times is not practicable to add a prefix to the namespace definition and all unprefixed elements.

Both Xalan and Saxon provide in its XPath API ways to define namespace prefixes when evaluating an standalone XPath expression.

Please provide a mechanism to allow the user to define namespace prefixes that would be available to the standalone Xpath evaluator.

Thank you in advance.

Jose M Beleta

[george]

Hi Jose,

Oxygen does provide a handling for default namespaces, unfortunatelly this feature is not present in the user guide. If the document has a default namespace then oXygen will bind that to the first free prefix from

default
default1
default2
...

Best Regards,
George

[dsmiley]

I suggest that it not be necessary to enter "default" as a magic namespace prefix. This is unintuitive.

Also... it would be nice if in the status bar or somewhere else displayed the xpath expression to your current location. Perhaps underneath the "model" tab area. I don't know.

[george]

I suggest that it not be necessary to enter "default" as a magic namespace prefix. This is unintuitive.<snip/>

This will be documented in the user guide. Any suggestions to make it more intuitive? And I think it is necessary, otherwise one cannot access a namespaced node.

Best Regards,
George

[dsmiley]

It isn't necessary. A namespace'ed node can be accessed as it works currently -- with the appropriate prefix.

[george]

Hi David,

Right, but we were talking about the case when there is no prefix, example:

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<test xmlns="http://test.com/test">

  <a>a</a>  

</test>

In this case test and a from the XPath expression test/a mean
test element from no namespace
a element from no namespace
and the XPath expression will not match any node in the sample document because there the test and a elements are from the http://test.com/test namespace.
I such a case oXygen will map default to the http://test.com/test namespace and the user can write default:test/default:a

Hope that clarifies things.

Best Regards,
George