From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2005-07-05T18:05:45+09:00
Subject: Re: Finding all paths in an XML document

Ghislain Mary wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'd like to know how you would search for all the paths of an XML
> document using REXML. For example, let say that the document is the
> following:
> 
> <document>
>    <content>a simple sample</content>
>    <node>
>      <content>some text</content>
>    </node>
>    <node>
>      <foo>
>        <content>an other sample</content>
>      </foo>
>    </node>
> </document>
> 
> What I'd like to have is an Array like this:
> [['content'],
>   ['node'],
>   ['node', 'content'],
>   ['node', 'foo'],
>   ['node', 'foo', 'content']]
> 
> Any ideas ?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ghislain

This might help:

require "rexml/document"

doc = File.open( "doc.xml" ){|io| REXML::Document.new io}

doc.elements.each( "//*" ) do |el|
  p el.xpath.split(%r{/})
end

Alternative:

require "rexml/document"

doc = File.open( "doc.xml" ){|io| REXML::Document.new io}

doc.elements.each "//*" do |el|
  path = []
  par = el

  while par
    path.unshift par.name
    par = par.parent
  end

  path.shift
  p path
end

Kind regards

    robert