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I'm using SimpleXML (Java) and I'm trying to get a List of objects based on the value of one of the siblings of the list.

So, here's my XML:

<xml> <metadata> <resources> <resource> <ittype>Service_Links</ittype> <links> <link> <path>http://www.stackoverflow.com</path> <description>Stack Overflow</description> </link> <link> <path>http://www.google.com</path> <description>Google</description> </link> </links> </resource> <resource> <ittype>Article_Links</ittype> <links> ... </links> </resource> ... </resources> </metadata> </xml>

What I am trying to do is create a SimpleXML-annotation using XPath in order to get a List of all of the "links" where the list's sibling "ittype" equals "Service_Links".

So, for example, this works but only if I'm trying to statically get the 1st "resource"-node (as opposed to dynamically getting the "resource"-node based on what it's sibling "ittype" is:

@ElementList(name="links") @Path("metadata/resources[1]/resource") public List<Link> link;

I've tried so many ways to format the xpath to dynamically find the "resource"-node I want that I couldn't possibly list them all here; however, this is one example I've tried that seems to me it should work; no clue what I'm doing wrong...

@ElementList(name="links") @Path("metadata/resources[resource/ittype='Service_Links']/resource") public List<Link> link;

I've googled a ton, including here on SO, and just can't find much very similar; and what I did find, didn't translate well enough for me to spot what I need to do. For example, this SO didn't seem to work even though it's pretty similar.


UPDATE #1 (8OCT @ 12:38pm)

Per feedback, I have tried this:

@ElementList @Path("metadata/resources/resource[ittype='Service_Links']") public List<Link> link;

No dice: org.simpleframework.xml.core.PathException: Invalid index for path 'metadata/resources/resource[ittype='Service_Links']' in field 'links'

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3 Answers 3

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I never got SimpleXml to implement this style of XPath; from reading through their docs more thoroughly, it looks like they haven't implemented this XPath feature yet.

So I settled on a different XML-parsing strategy here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/13236117/483257

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I don't know about SimpleXML specifically, but this xpath should get you the elements you want:

metadata/resources/resource[ittype = 'Service_Links']
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  1. Your xml example is not well-formed. The link element doesn't have its closing counterpart. The same applies for the description el. I assume these are just typos.
  2. Here is the working XPath expression:

/metadata/resources/resource/links/link[parent::links/preceding-sibling::ittype/text()=='Service_Links']

or much simpler version:

/metadata/resources/resource[ittype = 'Service_Links']/links/link

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4 Comments

Thank you for the reply; yes, those were just typos in my post here on SO; I've corrected them; will try your answer today and provide feedback.
@Jiri... FYI... the XPath you provided doesn't work exactly like that using SimpleXML (or at least I don't think it does; I've tried it, didn't seem to); closest thing is how Ian's answer is formatted though that also doesn't work (see the "update" at the bottom of my question).
Sorry, I don't know the SimpleXML framework, but the XPath itself should be ok (xpathtester.com). What about escaping the quotes? here is similar thread with similar exception stackoverflow.com/questions/12298673/…
@Jiri... yeah, no you're xpath is right I'm sure, just doesn't seem to fit SimpleXml's API (or I can't seem to get it to fit anyways); I appreciate the link to xpathtester though, thanks! That'll come in handy.

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