Question

Here’s a trivial but valid Docbook article:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <article xmlns='http://docbook.org/ns/docbook' version='5.0'> <title>I Am Title</title> <para>I am content.</para> </article> 

Here’s a stylesheet that selects title if I remove the xmlns attribute above, and not if I leave it in:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <xsl:stylesheet version='1.0' xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform'> <xsl:output method='html'/>     <xsl:template match='/'>         <xsl:apply-templates select='article'/>     </xsl:template>     <xsl:template match='article'>       <p><xsl:value-of select='title'/></p>     </xsl:template>     <xsl:template match='text()'/> </xsl:stylesheet> 

How do I talk XPath into selecting title through article if it has that namespace attribute?

Answer 1

You need to add an alias for your namespace and use that alias in your XPath

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <xsl:stylesheet version='1.0'    xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform'    xmlns:a='http://docbook.org/ns/docbook'    exclude-result-prefixes='a'    > <xsl:output method='html'/>     <xsl:template match='/'>         <xsl:apply-templates select='a:article'/>     </xsl:template>     <xsl:template match='a:article'>       <p><xsl:value-of select='a:title'/></p>     </xsl:template>     <xsl:template match='text()'/> </xsl:stylesheet>