XPATH problem with dom4j

Question

I am using dom4j to overwrite a value in the XML. The XML looks like this:

Answer 1

to select the three values, use:

//name[@time='555555']/element1/value

If that returns null as well, there may be a default namespace involved and that means you need to show your entire XML.

XPath is flexible, if you want you can express the same like this:

//value[ancestor::name[1]/@time='555555']

Answer 2

The XPath that you are using is looking for a time attribute equal to 555555 on element1. However, your time attributes are on the name nodes.

You could go either the way Tomalak suggested, or change it to:

//element1[../@time='555555']

This is looking for an element1 node with a parent who has a time attribute equal to 555555.