Question

I am trying to learn XPath, and finding it difficult, as I am Googling my way through it all.
Here is my XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <details>
        <signature id="sig1">
            <name>mr. Barry Smith</name>
            <telephone type="fixed">01234 123456</telephone>
            <telephone type="mobile">071234562</telephone>
        </signature>

        <signature id="sig2">
            <name>mr. Harry Smith</name>
            <telephone type="fixed">01234 123456</telephone>
        </signature>
    </details>

How can I find the names of people who have a mobile phone, I can get either or, but not both.

I have been trying things like this:

staffdetails/signature/telephone[@type='mobile']name

Also, is there a reference guide for using XPAth, so I can easily figure out any query I wish? Using online tutorials I have found explain how XPath works, but the examples don’t cover enough.

Thank you!

Answer 1

This should work:

//signature/name[following-sibling::telephone[@type='mobile']]

It reads as:

Select any name that has a signature parent and a telephone sibling which type = mobile.

Regarding the reference, I actually learnt the most from the examples in the spec!