XPath Fundamentals
XPath is a W3C Recommendation titled "XML Path Language (XPath)Version 1.0." The specification can be located at http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xpath-19991116.
Note
XPath is foundational to parts of XSLT and XPointer. It is likely to be extended further in a forthcoming XML Query specification.
What exactly is XPath? The XPath Recommendation states, "XPath is a language for addressing parts of an XML document, designed to be used by both XSLT and XPointer." In other words, XPath tells an XML or XSLT processor how to find its way around an XML document; it is a syntax used primarily to describe how to do that.
XPath also has a syntax for matching patterns in document elements. This is used, for example, to determine whether ...
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