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javaxmlxpathdom4j

How do I find all xml elements of a specific type using xpath?

I have an XSD that defines a complexType (say 'FooType'), and several named instances of this type scattered throughout the same XSD, like: 

<sequence>
    <element name="A" type="tns:FooType"/>
    <element name="B" type="tns:FooType"/>
</sequence>

When working with an XML file derived from the XSD, I want to find all element nodes that of the type "tns:FooType". I think this is possible using XPath with the element(*, "FooType) method, but I can't find any examples of this so don't know what the syntax would look like. I'm hoping to use this with the Java dom4j selectNodes() method.

Solution

  • You need an XPath 2.0 implementation. DOM4J is 1.0 only, and so is javax.xml.xpath. Saxon provides 2.0, but I believe this specific capability is not part of the open source edition.