XPath Tester

How to test an XPath expression

1. Paste XML or open a file. If it is not well-formed, the error and its line appear instead of results; the XML validator explains them.
2. Type the expression in the box above the results. Matches update as you type.
3. Each match shows its path and the node: elements as XML, attributes and text as their value. Expressions such as count(//node) show a single number, string or boolean.

Examples

<cluster name="eu-west">
  <node id="n1" role="primary">
    <host>db1.internal</host>
    <cpu>8</cpu>
  </node>
  <node id="n2" role="replica">
    <host>db2.internal</host>
    <cpu>4</cpu>
  </node>
  <node id="n3" role="replica">
    <host>db3.internal</host>
    <cpu>16</cpu>
  </node>
</cluster>

[1] applies to the step right before it, so //host[1] means every host that is first in its parent: all three. Parentheses take the first match in the whole document.

Default namespaces return nothing

A Maven POM declares a default namespace on its root:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0">
  <artifactId>billing</artifactId>
  <version>2.3.0</version>
</project>

/project/version matches nothing: in XPath 1.0 an unprefixed name only matches elements in no namespace. Use the local name: /*[local-name()='project']/*[local-name()='version']. Prefixes declared on the root element work as written, such as //soap:Body.

The XPath tester runs XPath 1.0

It uses document.evaluate, the XPath 1.0 engine in every browser, so expressions behave as they do in front-end code. XPath 2.0 functions such as ends-with(), lower-case() and matches() return an XPath error. Their 1.0 stand-ins:

• ends-with(., '.internal'): substring(., string-length(.) - string-length('.internal') + 1) = '.internal'
• lower-case(@role): translate(@role, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz')
• matches(): no regular expressions in 1.0; combine contains() and starts-with().

The Tree in the XML formatter copies the XPath of any node. For JSON, use the JSONPath tester.