The XPath specification is the foundation for a variety of specifications, including XSLT and linking/addressing specifications such as XPointer. So an understanding of XPath is fundamental to a lot of advanced XML usage. This section provides a thorough introduction to XPath in the context of XSLT so that you can refer to it as needed.
Note: In this tutorial, you won't actually use XPath until later, in the section, Transforming XML Data with XSLT. So, if you like, you can skip this section and go on ahead to the next section, Writing Out a DOM as
Description
This work defines the XML Pointer Language (XPointer), the language to be used as a fragment identifier for any URI-reference that locates a resource of Internet media type text/xml or application/xml.
XPointer has been split into a framework for specifying location schemes, and three schemes: element(), xmlns() and xpointer(). The framework and the first two schemes form the XPointer Recommendation, and provide a minimal inventory of mechanisms.
The xpointer() scheme, which is based on the XML Path Language (XPath), is still under
XPointer is a system for addressing components of XML based internet media.
At the present time (late 2002), XPointer is divided among four specifications: a "framework" which forms the basis for identifying XML fragments, a positional element addressing scheme, a scheme for namespaces, and a scheme for XPath-based addressing.
The XPointer language is designed to address structural aspects of XML, including text content and other information objects created as a result of parsing the document. Thus, it could be used to point to a section of a
Abstract
This specification defines the XML Pointer Language (XPointer), the language to be used as the basis for a fragment identifier for any URI reference that locates a resource whose Internet media type is one of text/xml, application/xml, text/xml-external-parsed-entity, or application/xml-external-parsed-entity.
Status of this Document
This document has been superceded.
The design described in previous versions of this document has been factored into a basic framework (http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr-framework/) which defines XPointer schemes