Question

I have an xml document that is constructed pretty poorly– instead of child nodes, the items have multiple attributes.

For Example:

<makes>
<option make="FORD" year_start="1950" year_end="2009" />
<option make="CHEVROLET" year_start="1965" year_end="2009" />
...
</makes>

I’m trying to use XPath to select the value of the other attributes for all nodes that match a certain attribute. I’m populating 3 asp drop down menus with values from 2 xml documents based on a previous selection. I’m using .net/c#

For Example:
for all option nodes with a make attribute that has the value x, find the value of year_start.

I tried something like this:

  yearListData.XPath = string.Format("/makes/option[@year_start] and [@make={0}]", make);

where make = the previous selection. Obviously, it didn’t work.

is there a way using XPath to do this?

Answer 1

/makes/option[@year_start and @make="FORD"]/@year_start

You can combine with AND/OR conditions inside the [ and ], then ask for the attribute.