what is the difference between these in xpath?

Question

I am new to xpath can anyone let me now in detail what is the difference between /bookstore/* and /bookstore in xpath?

let say this is example input

<bookstore>
    <book>
      <title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
      <price>29.99</price>
    </book>
    <book>
      <title lang="en">Learning XML</title>
      <price>39.95</price>
    </book>
</bookstore>

<bookstore>

    <book>
      <title lang="en">Harry Potter1</title>
      <price>29.999</price>
    </book>

    <book>
      <title lang="en">Learning XML1</title>
      <price>39.955</price>
    </book>

</bookstore>

what will be output in both cases? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The expression /bookstore/* will select children, /bookstore will select the node itself.

For instance, /bookstore/* will select all child elements under /bookstore, so you may end up with a collection of elements. Note that in case this is a more complex expression like /bookstore/book/* and there are multiple /bookstore/book elements, all children of all matching nodes are selected.

The expression /bookstore will select only the element(s) /bookstore. Similarily to the above, such select may result in a collection of elements if it's down the path like /bookstore/book.