InputStream exception while evaluating Xpath

Question

I get : javax.xml.transform.TransformerException: Unable to evaluate expression using this context

    at com.sun.org.apache.xpath.internal.XPath.execute(Unknown Source)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xpath.internal.jaxp.XPathImpl.eval(Unknown Source)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xpath.internal.jaxp.XPathImpl.evaluate(Unknown Source)
    at XPathImplementation.evaluate(XPathImplementation.java:136)
    at Main.main(Main.java:23)
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to evaluate expression using this context
    at com.sun.org.apache.xpath.internal.axes.NodeSequence.setRoot(Unknown Source)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xpath.internal.axes.LocPathIterator.execute(Unknown Source)

While trying to evaluate an Xpath expression using InputStream object , I've tried to debug it however found nothing wrong (and of course I missed something ..) . Here's the code:

From Main:

    XPathProject m = new XPathImplementation();
    m.loadXML("books.xml"); 
    String q = "inventory/book/chapter[3]/preceding-sibling::chapter//title";
    Object ob = m.evaluate(q, null, XPathConstants.NODESET);

We use this evaluate method :

public Object evaluate(String expression, Node source, QName returnType) throws XPathExpressionException,IllegalArgumentException,NullPointerException, TransformerException
{
...
  InputStream  is = nodeToInputStream(source);
  Object returnedObject= xpath.evaluate(expression, is, returnType); // it happens here !!

... more code
}

Auxiliary method nodeToInputStream:

/*
 *    Convert Node object into InputStream object
 */

    private InputStream nodeToInputStream(Node node) throws TransformerException {
        ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        StreamResult outputTarget = new StreamResult(outputStream);
        Transformer t = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
        t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.OMIT_XML_DECLARATION, "yes");
        t.transform(new DOMSource(node), outputTarget);
        return new ByteArrayInputStream(outputStream.toByteArray());
}

Any idea where did I go wrong ? 10x!

Martin Honnen · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-13 13:39:00Z

1

Well m.evaluate(q, null, XPathConstants.NODESET); passes in a null reference to the evaluate method so you create new DOMSource(null) I think which does not seem to make sense to me and probably results in that error later where a relative XPath inventory/book/chapter[3]/preceding-sibling::chapter//title is evaluated.

answered May 13, 2012 at 13:39

Martin Honnen

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1 Comment

JAN Over a year ago

I've tried with a Node object (that is not a NULL) and it still produces the same result .

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