From: Mark Volkmann <r.mark.volkmann@...>
Date: 2006-01-28T22:51:39+09:00
Subject: Re: REXML and XPath

On 1/27/06, Adam Keys <adam@therealadam.com> wrote:
> On Jan 26, 2006, at 8:18 PM, Mark Volkmann wrote:
> > On 1/26/06, Mark Volkmann <r.mark.volkmann@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> The documentation for REXML says is has full XPath 1.0 support.
> >> However, I can't see a way to get the XPath class to return values
> >> other than nodes. For example, if I have an XML document that
> >> contains
> >> "book" elements, I should be able to do something like this.
> >>
> >> count = XPath.evaluate(doc, count('//book'))
> >
> > Minor syntax correction here,
> >
> > count = XPath.evaluate(doc, 'count(//book)')
> >
>
> As a work-around, you could try this:
>
> count = XPath.match(doc, '//book').length
>
> REXML may just support XPath's selection syntax and not the pseudo-
> function-things like you're trying to use above.

I found out that it does support what I wanted which is XPath
expressions that result in a number, string or boolean. You need to
use the XPath.first method for those.

--
R. Mark Volkmann
Partner, Object Computing, Inc.