Question

I’m trying to parse a String which is XML like, and looks like this:

<note>
 <user>Username 1</user>
 <notes>Notes user wrote</notes>
</note>
<note>
 <user>Username 2</user>
 <notes>Notes user wrote</notes>
</note>

I’m a little bit confused with how to use the JQuery XML parser, I guess i’m used to SQL programming to access data.

What I want to do is print out the note based on the user name

so in SQL that’d be “SELECT notes FROM note WHERE user=’Username 1′”

How do you do a selection like that in the JQuery XML Parser?

Edit what i’m trying:

For some reason this keeps returning Null:

 var xml = '<url>urlofpage1</url><notes>These notes should load!</notes>';
 var $xml = $(xml);

var $notes = $xml.find('url')
                 .filter(function() { return $(this).text() == 'urlofpage1' })
                 .closest('notes');

console.log('$notes: ', $notes.html()); 

Answer 1

First you’d want a jQuery object:

var xml = '<note><user>Username 1</user><notes>Notes user wrote</notes></note><note><user>Username 2</user><notes>Notes user wrote</notes></note>';
var $xml = $(xml);

Then you could use find and the :contains selector to find the particular <user> you wanted and then closest to go back up to the <note>:

var $notes = $xml.find('user:contains("Username 1")').closest('note');

For example (run with the console open): http://jsfiddle.net/ambiguous/3Yqqu/

You have to be careful with the :contains selector though as:

The matching text can appear directly within the selected element, in any of that element’s descendants, or a combination thereof.

Hence the user:contains (a narrow search) followed by closest to go back up. You might want to add an extra filtering step if you’re looking for strict equality rather than something LIKEish:

var $notes = $xml.find('user')
                 .filter(function() { return $(this).text() == 'Username 1' })
                 .closest('note');

And an example of this (console open again please): http://jsfiddle.net/ambiguous/fYNXx/

The thinking is similar to SQL in that you’re working with sets most of the time. However, you often chain things together more in the sense of shell pipeline than nested queries, sub-selects, and derived tables.