Wierd. I'd classify this either as a bug, or as a feature that's not implemented.
Ah well. The XML stuff in CF had so much promise. Back to using Xalan/Xerces for everything for me. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mueller, Ben" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 12:54 pm Subject: RE: XPath in CFMX > The problem is not that MACR returns an array rather than a string > in this > particular XPath case. The problem is that, in the case where I'm > trying to > get the value of an attribute, it returns an array of length one that > appears to have nothing in it. > > If you run this code in MX: > > <cfxml variable="sampleXML"> > <rule name="firstRule"> > <subelement name="myAttribute">text here</subelement> > </rule> > </cfxml> > > <cfset res1 = xmlSearch(sampleXML,"rule/@name")> > <cfdump var=#res1#> > > ...you'll see that the cfdump of the "res1" object has no data in > it. If it > returned the value of the attribute somewhere in the array, I'd be > homefree. > > Is there something really basic about this that I'm missing? > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Alexander Sherwood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 1:47 PM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: RE: XPath in CFMX > > > At 11:19 AM 3/12/2003 -0600, you wrote: > > >That's sort of what I was afraid of. If it's legal XPath syntax, > then why > >doesn't the XmlSearch function support it? Is it a weakness in > MX, or is > >this a deliberate omission? And does anybody know if MM has > plans to > >support this in the future? > > Well, i think it has more to do with how MACR wanted to implement > the > XMLSearch feature. The W3C spec doesn't specifiy how the parser > should > return data, it just specifies that the XPATH should locate the > element/attribute in the document - no matter what. > > MACR just decided that they wanted to return an array instead of > say, a > string variable or a number. This makes sense when, in many cases, > you're > not sure how much data is going to come back. The function is > standardized > to return the same data type on each call: an array. > > Look at this Xpath, for example: '//Address'. If you > XMLSearch()'ed on this > path and the parser found 4 valid elements, how would it be > returned to > you? In an array or some other "collection" like data type > (struct, hash > table, etc.). > > BUT, when you are using XMLSearch() to grab one element's > attribute, how > can the function just return you a string, and not an array? You > would have > to write code after each function call to decided how to process > the return > data. Did I get back an array to loop over or a string? MACR just > went with > the array because it make the most sense - regardless of what the > parser > finds. Even if you search for one element, you grab it at > index[1], and use > XMLAttributes to extract the string or numeric value. > > It would be nice, however, to have an XMLExtractAttribute() > function, that > simply returns the first attribute (in the form of a string return > type) > value found for the supplied XPATH. > > > > > > >-----Original Message----- > >From: Jochem van Dieten [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 11:24 AM > >To: CF-Talk > >Subject: Re: XPath in CFMX > > > > > >Mueller, Ben wrote: > > > Yes, that is exactly what I want. It would appear (at least from > > > Microsoft's website) that this is legal Xpath syntax. A > previous poster > > > suggested that this may have been an extension MS made that falls > outside > > > the w3c spec. At this point, I'd be happy with confirmation > that a call > > > like "Books/Book/@type" is just illegal according to the w3c spec. > > > >I think it is legal syntax. http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath section 2.5 > > > >Jochem > > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
