Question

This should be simple and everything I read says that select = “name” should select all the nodes with the “name” in an xml document..
So Im trying to work a simple example.. here’s the XML: (its a simple inventory app).

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<inventory type="inventory">
<item type="zone" CanAdd="true">
    <title>Building</title>
    <item type="porch" CanAdd="true">
        <title>Porch</title>
    </item>
    <item type="receptionRoom" CanAdd="true">
        <title>Reception Room</title>
        <item type="doorInfo" CanAdd="true">
            <title>Door</title>
            <item type="doorStyleType" select="multi">
                <title>Door Style</title>
                <item>
                    <title>Internal</title>
                </item>
                <item>
                    <title>Plain</title>
                </item>
            </item>
            <item type="doorWinMaterialType" select="single">
                <title>Door Material</title>
                <item type="softwoodColours" select="single">
                    <title>Softwood - Stained</title>
                    <item>
                        <title>Stained Pine</title>
                    </item>
                </item>
            </item>
            <item type="doorwinFurnitureType" select="multi">
                <title>Door Furniture</title>
                <item>
                    <title>Door Handle</title>
                </item>
                <item>
                    <title>LetterBox Opening</title>
                </item>
            </item>
        </item>
    </item>
</item>
<propertyName><![CDATA[2 Street, Village]]></propertyName>
<propertyRef><![CDATA[15p9]]></propertyRef>
</inventory>

.. and I need to start to process it with XSLT. (In a C# code behind page – that bit works and throws the result into a pop up.)

The XSLT I am playing with is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl"
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
            >
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
    <div>
            <h2>My Inventory</h2>
            <table border="1">
                <tr>
                    <td>
                    <xsl:value-of select="inventory/propertyName" />
                    </td>
                </tr>
            <xsl:for-each select ="item">
                <tr>
                    <td>
                        <xsl:value-of select="."/>
                    </td>  
                </tr>
            </xsl:for-each>
            </table>
        <p>Hello world</p>
   </div>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylsheet>

The “item” node is not found in the for-each loop and I think I’ve hit a mental block as to why. I’m sure the answer is glaringly simple when you know it, but at the moment I don’t and need to solve this before I can move on so to speak.
The output is: (in a browser)..

My Inventory
2 Street, Village 
(I expect a list of the "item" node values here in table rows..)
Hello world

Many Thanks,
Brett

Answer 1

The XPath item that you’ve specified for your <xsl:for-each> loop is evaluated relative to the current node, i.e. relative to the document root. In order to select any <item> elements at any nesting depth in the document, you will have to use

//item

However, I think you want something slightly different, as the text of <item> elements themselves is their <title> text as well as the text of any nested <item> elements. Possibly, you are looking for:

//item/title

To respond directly to your sentence

everything I read says that select = “name” should select all the nodes with the “name” in an xml document

This is not correct. select="name" selects all the elements named “name” in the list of child nodes of the current node, not anywhere in the Xml document.