Xpath error with not() and ends-with()

Question

I have the following Xpath expression:

//*[not(input)][ends-with(@*, \'Copyright\')]

I expect it to give me all elements - except input - w

Answer 1

I have the following Xpath expression:

//*[not(input)][ends-with(@*, 'Copyright')]

I expect it to give me all elements - except input - with any attribute value which ends with "Copyright".

There are a few issues here:

1. ends-with() is a standard XPath 2.0 function only, so the chances are you are using an XPath 1.0 engine and it correctly raises an error because it doesn't know about a function called ends-with().

2. Even if you are working with an XPath 2.0 processor, the expression ends-with(@*, 'Copyright') results in error in the general case, because the ends-with() function is defined to accept atmost a single string (xs:string?) as both of its operands -- however @* produces a sequence of more than one string in the case when the element has more than one attribute.

3. //*[not(input)] doesn't mean "select all elements that are not named input. The real meaning is: "Select all elements that dont have a child element named "input".

Solution:

1. Use this XPath 2.0 expression: //*[not(self::input)][@*[ends-with(.,'Copyright')]]

2. In the case of XPath 1.0 use this expression:

....

  //*[not(self::input)]
        [@*[substring(., string-length() -8) = 'Copyright']]

Here is a short and complete verification of the last XPath expression, using XSLT:

when this transformation is applied on the following XML document:

the wanted, correct result is produced:

In the case of the XML document being in a default namespace:

when applied on this XML document:

the wanted, correct result is produced: