XPath Convert Node to String

[sshahin]

Is there a way to Convert a Node to a String using XPath 1.0? For
example, consider the following xml doc:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<FaultTo xmlns="http://blah.org"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Address>http://www.altova.com</Address>

<ReferenceProperties>

<fabrikam:CustomerKey1 xmlns:fabrikam="http://blah.com">3333
<fabrikam:type>TYPE4</fabrikam:type>
</fabrikam:CustomerKey1>

<fabrikam:CustomerKey2
xmlns:fabrikam="http://blah.com">4444</fabrikam:CustomerKey2>

<fabrikam:CustomerKey3
xmlns:fabrikam="http://blah.com">6666</fabrikam:CustomerKey3>

</ReferenceProperties>

<ServiceName PortName="NCName">q:name</ServiceName>
</FaultTo>

I want to be able to extract and return everything contained within
<ReferenceProperties> as a string using xpath 1.0 (I do not wish to use
CDATA or any workarounds like this; basically the XML should be left
untouched with no modifications).

 

[Martin Honnen]

Is there a way to Convert a Node to a String using XPath 1.0?

Yes, you can certainly do
string(nodeset[1])
but that gives you what XPath 1.0 defines as the string value of that
node (see <http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath#function-string> and
<http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath#element-nodes>) while you seem to want to
serialize the contents to get back the XML markup of the contents.
There is no function in XPath 1.0 to serialize nodes.

 

[sshahin]

This is not what I am looking for. I am looking to return the
following:

<fabrikam:CustomerKey1 xmlns:fabrikam="http://blah.com">3333
<fabrikam:type>TYPE4</fabrikam:type>
</fabrikam:CustomerKey1>

<fabrikam:CustomerKey2
xmlns:fabrikam="http://blah.com">4444</fabrikam:CustomerKey2>
<fabrikam:CustomerKey3
xmlns:fabrikam="http://blah.com">6666</fabrikam:CustomerKey3>

I seem to agree with you that Xpath may not have a built-in function
for extracting an XML fragment as a string. If there is anyone else
out there who can provide input, I would greatly appreciat it.

 

[Dimitre Novatchev]

This is not what I am looking for. I am looking to return the
following:

<fabrikam:CustomerKey1 xmlns:fabrikam="http://blah.com">3333
<fabrikam:type>TYPE4</fabrikam:type>
</fabrikam:CustomerKey1>

<fabrikam:CustomerKey2
xmlns:fabrikam="http://blah.com">4444</fabrikam:CustomerKey2>
<fabrikam:CustomerKey3
xmlns:fabrikam="http://blah.com">6666</fabrikam:CustomerKey3>

I seem to agree with you that Xpath may not have a built-in function
for extracting an XML fragment as a string. If there is anyone else
out there who can provide input, I would greatly appreciat it.

This is trivial using XSLT.

Read about the
xsl:copy-of

xslt instruction.



Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev