Question

Given this XML:

<foos>
    <foo>
        <name>Apple</name>
        <rank>1</rank>
        <key>asdfasdfasdf</key>
    </foo>
    <foo>
        <name>Orange</name>
        <rank>3</rank>
        <key>qwerqwtwetqw</key>
    </foo>
    <foo>
        <name>Apple</name>
        <rank>2</rank>
        <key>zxcvzxvcxzb</key>
    </foo>
    ...
</foos>

I’m trying to find the key of the foo with a particular name, let’s say “Apple”, that has the highest rank. I’m using the following xpath expression (a workaround for the lack of a max function):

/foos/foo[name='Apple' and rank >= /foos/foo[name='Apple']/rank]/key/text()

However I’m sometimes getting multiple results back, even though every name-rank combination is unique. Where am I going wrong here?

This is being used in Java – if that turns out to be relevant I can post the entire code.

Answer 1

Try this:

/foos/foo[name='Apple'][not(preceding-sibling::foo[name='Apple']/rank>./rank) and not(following-sibling::foo[name='Apple']/rank>./rank)]/key/text()