From: Ronald Fischer <ronald.fischer@...>
Date: 2007-07-12T22:58:01+09:00
Subject: XML file processing using REXML (beginner's question)

Hello!

I try to understand REXML using the tutorial in 

  http://www.germane-software.com/software/rexml/docs/tutorial.html

However, I have problems applying the path expressions to my
application.
Consider for example the following program, and in particular the last
line:

#!/usr/bin/ruby
require "rexml/document"
require 'pp'
source=<<ENDXML
<ns:toplevel>
     <ns:request requestID="1">
        <ns:application aid="demo-a">
         </ns:application>
     </ns:request>
     <ns:request requestID="2">
        <ns:application aid="demo-b">
        </ns:application>
     </ns:request>
</ns:toplevel>
ENDXML
doc=REXML::Document.new source
doc.elements.each("ns:toplevel/ns:request") { |element| puts
element.attributes["requestID"] }
root=doc.root
pp root.elements["ns:toplevel/ns:request[@requestID='2']"]

The program outputs

1
2
nil

that is, it finds the two elements "request" and correctly outputs their
attribute
requestID, but when I try to locate request number two with the path
expression

  ns:toplevel/ns:request[@requestID='2']

it is not found. What am I doing wrong here?

Ronald
-- 
Ronald Fischer <ronald.fischer@venyon.com>
Phone: +49-89-452133-162