Hi, that is because your XPath statement operates on the default namespace (xmlns="") and when you set a different default namespace in your document the query will yield "null" as a result of the selectSingleNode method and your getText() will not work on null.
Note that I only tried the following to define namespace prefixes, never to change the default namespace... but it probably would look something like this: try { HashMap<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>(); // usually I put the prefix here as the first parameter map.put("", "http://www.nget.com/coreapps/RunDVPRequest"); XPath xpath = new Dom4jXPath(xpathstring); xpath.setNamespaceContext(new SimpleNamespaceContext(map)); return xpath.selectNodes(_xml); } catch (JaxenException e) { System.err.println("Trouble with Jaxen..."); return null; } Cheers Richard Am 18.01.2007 um 00:07 schrieb S. Sharif: Hi, The following piece of code works fine primaryUserId = inputDocument.selectSingleNode("Document/LOGIN_LIST [EMAIL PROTECTED]'Primary']/LOGIN/USERID").getText(); for the following xml tree <pre> <Document> <LOGIN_LIST filter="Primary"> <LOGIN> <USERID>testuser</USERID> <PASSWORD>somepassword</PASSWORD> </LOGIN> </LOGIN_LIST> </Document> </pre> But when the above xml tree is modified by adding an xmlns attribute to the root "Document" element, the code no longer works and it throws a NullPointerException <pre> <Document xmlns="http://www.nget.com/coreapps/RunDVPRequest"> <LOGIN_LIST filter="Primary"> <LOGIN> <USERID>testuser</USERID> <PASSWORD>somepassword</PASSWORD> </LOGIN> </LOGIN_LIST> </Document> </pre> Why is it no longer working? The XPath expression should still work? ********************************************************** * Saladin Sharif * e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Visit homepage @ http://gaia.ecs.csus.edu/~sharifs ********************************************************** ________________________________________________________________________ ____________ 8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time with the Yahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#news ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php? page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ dom4j-user mailing list dom4j-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dom4j-user ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ dom4j-user mailing list dom4j-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dom4j-user