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Daniel Jonathan
Daniel Jonathan

Posted on • Originally published at biztalkdj.blogspot.com on

X-Path Queries on XML Document | BizTalk Server

#biztalk #biztalkserver #biztalkxpathquery #xpathquery

Here, in this article I would brief about querying XML Document Node values using X-path

XPath is used to navigate through elements and attributes in an XML document. It is a major element in W3C's XSLT standard. XPath uses path expressions to navigate in XML documents

It contains a library of standard functions and is a major element in XSLT; without XPath knowledge you will not be able to create XSLT documents.

XPath Terminology

Nodes

In xpath, there are seven kinds of nodes: element, attribute, text, namespace, processing-instruction, comment, and document nodes.

XML documents are treated as trees of nodes. The topmost element of the tree is called the root element.

x-path queries

Lets see about relationship between nodes and read element value using xpath with the below xml document,

<AddressBookEntryIdentifier>1212121212</AddressBookEntryIdentifier>  
  <ConsumerOrderNumber>100-200</ConsumerOrderNumber>  
  <Orders>  
    <Order>  
      <MetadataCollection>  
        <Metadata>  
          <Name>LoanNumber</Name>  
          <Value>100</Value>  
        </Metadata>  
        <Metadata>  
          <Name>TID</Name>  
          <Value>10</Value>  
        </Metadata>  
        <Metadata>  
          <Name>ID</Name>  
          <Value>11</Value>  
        </Metadata>  
        <Metadata>  
          <Name>ProviderID</Name>  
          <Value>1000</Value>  
        </Metadata>  
      </MetadataCollection>  
      <OrderNumber>10000</OrderNumber>  
      <ReferenceNumbers>  
        <OrderReference>  
          <ReferenceNumber>10101010</ReferenceNumber>  
          <ReferenceType>FileId</ReferenceType>  
        </OrderReference>  
      </ReferenceNumbers>  
    </Order>  
    <Order>  
      <MetadataCollection>  
        <Metadata>  
          <Name>LoanNumber</Name>  
          <Value>200</Value>  
        </Metadata>  
        <Metadata>  
          <Name>TID</Name>  
          <Value>20</Value>  
        </Metadata>  
        <Metadata>  
          <Name>EID</Name>  
          <Value>21</Value>  
        </Metadata>  
        <Metadata>  
          <Name>ProviderID</Name>  
          <Value>2000</Value>  
        </Metadata>  
      </MetadataCollection>  
      <OrderNumber>20000</OrderNumber>  
      <ReferenceNumbers>  
        <OrderReference>  
          <ReferenceNumber>202020</ReferenceNumber>  
          <ReferenceType>FileId</ReferenceType>  
        </OrderReference>  
      </ReferenceNumbers>  
    </Order>  
  </Orders>  
</OrderCollection>
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Relationship of Nodes

Parent

  • Each element and attribute has one parent.

    • In the sample shown; the Order element is the parent of the MetadataCollection, OrderNumber and ReferenceNumbers Child

  • Element nodes may have zero, one or more children.

    • In the example; the ReferenceNumber and ReferenceType elements are all children of the OrderReference element Siblings

  • Nodes that have the same parent.

    • In the sample shown example; the Name and Value elements are all siblings Ancestors

  • A node's parent, parent's parent, etc.

    • In the sample shown; the ancestors of the Order element are the Orders and OrderCollection elements Xpath Queries :

Select all the occurrence of an element irrespective of its parent,

  • \*[local-name()='OrderCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Orders' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Order' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='MetadataCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Metadata' and namespace-uri()='']

  • \*[local-name()='OrderCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Orders' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Order' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='MetadataCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Metadata' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='Name' and namespace-uri()='' and .='ProviderID']]/\*[local-name()='Value' and namespace-uri()='']

  • \*[local-name()='OrderCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Orders' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Order' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='ReferenceNumbers' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='OrderReference' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='ReferenceType' and namespace-uri()='' and .='FileId']]/\*[local-name()='ReferenceNumber' and namespace-uri()='']

Select an element within a specific parent

  • \*[local-name()='OrderCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Orders' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Order' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='OrderNumber' and namespace-uri()='' and .='10000']]/\*[local-name()='MetadataCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Metadata' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='Name' and namespace-uri()='' and .='ProviderID']]/\*[local-name()='Value' and namespace-uri()='']

Select parent with its child element

  • \*[local-name()='Metadata' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='Name' and namespace-uri()=''and .='ProviderID']]

Select an element with its sibling

  • \*[local-name()='Metadata' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='Name' and namespace-uri()='' and .='ProviderID']]/\*[local-name()='Value' and namespace-uri()='']

Select an element with case insensitive evaluation using translate function

  • \*[local-name()='OrderCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Orders' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Order' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='MetadataCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Metadata' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='Name' and namespace-uri()='' and translate(., 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz') ='id']]

Select Ancestor/Parent with its child

  • \*[local-name()='OrderCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Orders' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Order' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='OrderNumber' and namespace-uri()='' and .='10000']]

  • \*[local-name()='OrderCollection' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Orders' and namespace-uri()='']/\*[local-name()='Order' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='ReferenceNumbers' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='OrderReference' and namespace-uri()='' and \*[local-name()='ReferenceNumber' and namespace-uri()='' and .='10101010']]]]

Conclusion :

This article would help you understand writing xpath queries on xml and as BizTalk Server is a message-based system and all the messages that enter the BizTalk are converted to XML format, it would help you read elements inside maps/orchestration and pipeline components using xpaths

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