Perl XML get element node using XML::LibXML

Question

I would like to replace the element node of my XML file, but I did not even succeed to get the node. My code below works for other child nodes but not the id node.

Here is my XML file:

<header>
    <idset id="100">                            
        <a>item_a</a>
        <b>item_b</b>
    </idset>
</header>

Here is my code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use feature 'say';
use XML::LibXML;

my $file = 'test.xml';
my $parser = XML::LibXML->new();
my $doc = $parser->load_xml(location => $file);

my($object11) = $doc->findnodes('/header/idset');
say 'a: ',$object11->findvalue('./a');
say 'b: ',$object11->findvalue('./b');
say 'id: ',$object11->findvalue('./id');

Current Result:

a: item_a
b: item_b
id:

Expecting Result:

a: item_a
b: item_b
id: 100

ikegami · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-22 23:08:26Z

6

The id is an attribute, not an element. You need to use a different selector style in your xpath expression.

say 'id: ',$object11->findvalue('./@id');

In xpath, an attribute is targeted with @foo. See https://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xpath-19991116/#path-abbrev for a short summary of this and other xpath syntax.

edited Apr 22, 2020 at 23:08

ikegami

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answered Apr 22, 2020 at 12:47

simbabque

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1 Comment

ikegami Over a year ago

The reason the syntax is different for attributes and elements is that an element could have an attribute and an element with the same name.

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