distinct in Xpath?

Question

I have this XML file, from which I\'d like to count the number of users referenced in it. But they can appear in more than one category, and I\'d like these duplicates not t

Answer 1

I have a better answer

count(//user[not(. = following::user/.)])

Answer 2

You will need to use two functions like this.

count(distinct-values(//list/group/user))

First get the distinct values, then count them

Answer 3

A pure XPath 1.0 -- one-liner:

Use:

count(/*/group/user[not(. = ../following-sibling::group/user)])

Answer 4

count(//user[not(./@name = preceding::user/@name)])

I think the best way is to try to draw your xml data on paper to see how you can solve it easily

Answer 5

Not sure if you could do it in XPath, but it could be done easily using System.Linq:

string xml = "<list><group name='QA'><user name='name1'>name1@email</user><user name='name2'>name2@email</user></group><group name='DEV'><user name='name3'>name3@email</user><user name='name2'>name2@email</user></group></list>";
        XElement xe = XElement.Parse(xml);
        int distinctCount = xe.Elements().Elements().Select(n => n.Value).Distinct().Count();

In this example, distinctCount will equal 3.

Answer 6

using the functions namespace http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-functions you can use

distinct-values(//list/group/user)

UPDATE:

At the top of your xsl/xslt file you should have a stylesheet element, map the url above to the prefix fn as below...

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:fn="http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-functions"
 >

then you can use

select="fn:distinct-values(//list/group/user)"

this would assume you are doing this in templates and not in some xpathdocument object inwhich case you need to use a namespacemanager class.

links...

XSLT: Add namespace to root element

http://www.xqueryfunctions.com/xq/fn_distinct-values.html

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d6730bwt(VS.80).aspx

Otherwise try Dimitre Novatchev's answer.