XPath(2) nodes, atomic value and sequence

In xPath1.0, evaluation of expression will return one of the four basic results, one is node-set the others are atomic types

boolean, number,string

In xPath2.0, every value is a sequence. the value of every expression is a sequence of zero or more items. 

Atomic value is just a special case of a sequence: it is a sequence of length one.

Nodes

7 types of nodes:

• The document node (one per document)  - /
• Element nodes
• Attribute nodes
• Text nodes
• Comment nodes
• Processing instruction nodes
• Namespace nodes

Element node

The String value of an element node can be return by the <xsl:value-of select="nodeName"> eleent tage in XSLT.

The name of an element node can be returned by xPath function name().

The children of an element are the text, element, comment, and processing instruction nodes contained in the original element.

Attribute node

Although an element node is the parent of its attribute nodes, those attribute nodes are not children of their parent.

Node Test

From xPath 1.0:

node() - match all nodes

text() - text node only

comment() - nodes and axis

processing-instruction()

*

NCName:* - all nodes in a particular namespace

From xPath 2.0:

element() - checks element with an optional data type match.

schema-element

attribute() - match element with an optional data type match.

*:NCName - match regardless of namespace

Atomic values

xPath2.0 support all the basic datatypes in xml schema

xs:string - you can convert anything to a string by using string() function.

xs:boolean - you can use true() and false() function to evaluate the value

xs:decimal

xs:float and xs:double

xs:integer

xs:duration

xs:date - YYYY-MM-DD

xs:time- hh:mm:ss.sss

xs:dateTime

you can have a +|- sign to indicate time difference from UTC, like -05:00 after date or time

dateTime is the combination of xs:date and xs:time, separated by a single character T 1995-04-21T17:38:22.183-05:00

XML Schema defines the datatypes xs:gYearMonth, xs:gYear, xs:gMonthDay, gDay, and gMonth. 

Examples of these values, in order, are 1995-04 for April, 1995; 1995 for the year 1995; --04-21 for the 21st day of April; ---21 for the 21st day of a month; and --04 for April.

more datatypes:

xs:hexBinary and xs:base64Binary

xs:anyURI

xs:QName

xs:anyType and xs:anySimpleType 

xs:yearMonthDuration and xs:dayTimeDuration

xs:untyped and xs:untypedAtomic

xs:anyAtomicType

What is sequence?

Using nodes and atomic values we can derive the definition of sequence

Sequence is items.Sequences have no properties other than the items they contain.

Items are index from 1, the length can be obtained by count() function.

The items in a sequence are either  atomic values, or  node-set

An item is itself a sequence

types can have occurrence indicators + * ?