Concatenate multiple node values in xpath

Question

I have a XML that looks like this

<element1>
    <element2>
        <element3>    
            <element4>Hello</element4>
            <element5>World</element5>
        </element3>
        <element3>    
            <element4>Hello2</element4>
            <element5>World2</element5>
        </element3>
        <element3>    
            <element4>Hello3</element4>
            <element5>World3</element5>
        </element3>
    </element2>
</element1>

I am trying to use Xpath to get a result like this:

Hello.World
Hello2.World2
Hello3.World3

I used concat function below but I did not get correct result.

Concat function:

concat(/element1/element2/element3/element4/text(),".", /element1/element2/element3/element5/text())

Result I got:

Hello.World

How can I get the correct result? I am using XPath with Camel Spring DSL.

Edit:

Solutions in XQuery, XSLT and SPel are also appreciated.

Edit

I tried string-join and it did not work:

string-join function:

string-join((/element1/element2/element3/element4/text(), /element1/element2/element3/element5/text()),".")

Result I got:

Hello.Hello2.Hello3.World.World2.World3

In XPath2.0 there is string-join, looks more appropriate there.. However, what is with XSLT? I would use that here. — hek2mgl
– hek2mgl, Commented Feb 24, 2014 at 19:43
Added edit for string-join function. Also added XSLT to tags and requested solution. — krishna2642
– krishna2642, Commented Feb 24, 2014 at 20:00
To understand why you get this result: A node-set is converted to a string by returning the string-value of the node in the node-set that is first in document order. — nwellnhof
– nwellnhof, Commented Feb 24, 2014 at 20:16

Tim C · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-24 20:20:20Z

46

Try this expression...

string-join(//element3/(concat(element4/text(), '.', element5/text())), "&#10;")

answered Feb 24, 2014 at 20:20

Tim C

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4 Comments

adamretter Over a year ago

If you want a Sequence of results, the more succinct way is to use //element3/string-join(element4 | element5, "."), and if you must have a single string as a result then, string-join(//element3/string-join(element4 | element5, "."), "
") is another formulation, which IMHO is more readable.

Timmah Over a year ago

Garret Wilson Over a year ago

Be careful with //element3/string-join(element4 | element5, "."). Regardless of the order you give element4 and element5, the union operator | will maintain document order! That means //element3/string-join(element5 | element4, ".") will produce the same result as //element3/string-join(element4 | element5, ".") for the same input document. I usually want to control the order, so I prefer to simply list the items using the form //element3/string-join((element4, element5), ".").

ALEXintlsos Feb 5 at 21:54

Garret's simplified form did great things for me. I wanted to export a tilde-delimited set of attributes from a filtered set of elements, and //base/element[@filterattr!='Fixed']/string-join((@attr1,@attr2,@attr3),'~') worked great in XMLSpy. I copied the results to a text file and then opened them in Excel with the text import.

prespic · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-10 12:57:18Z

23

I used concat method and works well.

concat(//SomeElement/text(),'_',//OtherElement/text())

answered Sep 10, 2014 at 12:57

prespic

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Comments

hek2mgl · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-24 20:23:39Z

16

Here comes a solution with XSLT:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="//element3">
    <xsl:value-of select="element4/text()" />.<xsl:value-of select="element5/text()" />
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

answered Feb 24, 2014 at 20:23

hek2mgl

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1 Comment

hek2mgl Over a year ago

What's the point of down-voting this? Note that string-join() is available only for XPath2.0. That's why I suggested to use XSLT

Gilles Quénot · Accepted Answer · 2024-01-29 08:09:04Z

2

Using XQuery:

for $d in $doc/element2/element3 return fn:string-join(fn:data($d/element()), ".").
$doc stores the Xml.

edited Jan 29, 2024 at 8:09

Gilles Quénot

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answered Apr 25, 2017 at 15:18

bosari

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Comments

diagrams · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-04 14:21:48Z

1

If you need to join xpath-selected text nodes but can not use string-join (when you are stuck with XSL 1.0) this might help:

<xsl:variable name="x">
    <xsl:apply-templates select="..." mode="string-join-mode"/>
</xsl:variable>
joined and normalized: <xsl:value-of select="normalize-space($x)"/>

<xsl:template match="*" mode="string-join-mode">
    <xsl:apply-templates mode="string-join-mode"/>
</xsl:template>    

<xsl:template match="text()" mode="string-join-mode">
    <xsl:value-of select="."/>
</xsl:template>

answered Jul 4, 2020 at 14:21

diagrams

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Comments

VISHNU SINGH · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-04 08:02:31Z

-1

<xsl:template match="element3">
        <xsl:value-of select="element4,element5" separator="."/>
    </xsl:template>

answered May 4, 2017 at 8:02

VISHNU SINGH

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1 Comment

thewaywewere Over a year ago

Just posting code is not a good answer. Please read this how-to-answer if you haven't read it.

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