Question

I have an Xml File as below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<ea:Stories ea:WWVersion="2.0" xmlns:aic="http://ns.adobe.com/AdobeInCopy/2.0" xmlns:ea="urn:SmartConnection_v3">
<ea:Story ea:GUID="D8BEFD6C-AB31-4B0E-98BF-7348968795E1" pi0="style=&quot;50&quot; type=&quot;snippet&quot; readerVersion=&quot;6.0&quot; featureSet=&quot;257&quot; product=&quot;8.0(370)&quot; " pi1="SnippetType=&quot;InCopyInterchange&quot;">
<ea:StoryInfo>
<ea:SI_EL>headline</ea:SI_EL>
<ea:SI_Words>4</ea:SI_Words>
<ea:SI_Chars>20</ea:SI_Chars>
<ea:SI_Paras>1</ea:SI_Paras>
<ea:SI_Lines>1</ea:SI_Lines>
<ea:SI_Snippet>THIS IS THE HEADLINE</ea:SI_Snippet>
<ea:SI_Version>AB86A3CA-CEBC-49AA-A334-29641B95748D</ea:SI_Version>
</ea:StoryInfo>
</ea:Story>
</ea:Stories>

As you can see all elements have “ea:” which is a namespace prefix.

I’m writing an XSLT file to show the SI_Snippet text which is “THIS IS THE HEADLINE”.

How to write the xpath in the XSLT file? Should it contain the namespace or should it be excluded?

//ea:Story[ea:SI_EL='headline']/ea:SI_Snippet or 
//Story[SI_EL='headline']/SI_Snippet

Actually both fail in the online tool I used: http://xslt.online-toolz.com/tools/xslt-transformation.php

So there should be another way?

If later, how does it know which namespace to look at? Should I be passing the namespace to the XslTransformer at runtime?

Answer 1

You should declare the namespace in your XSLT and then use the prefix that you give it:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                xmlns:ea="urn:SmartConnection_v3">
    <xsl:template match="/">
       <xsl:value-of select="//ea:Story[ea:SI_EL='headline']/ea:SI_Snippet" />
    </xsl:template>

    <!-- ...  -->
</xsl:stylesheet>

Note the xmlns:ea="urn:SmartConnection_v3" in the root element. This is important.