% language=us runpath=texruns:manuals/xml \environment xml-mkiv-style \startcomponent xml-mkiv-lookups \startchapter[title={Lookups using lpaths}] \startsection[title={introduction}] There is not that much system in the following examples. They resulted from tests with different documents. The current implementation evolved out of the experimental code. For instance, I decided to add the multiple expressions in row handling after a few email exchanges with Jean|-|Michel Huffen. One of the main differences between the way \XSLT\ resolves a path and our way is the anchor. Take: \starttyping /something something \stoptyping The first one anchors in the current (!) element so it will only consider direct children. The second one does a deep lookup and looks at the descendants as well. Furthermore we have a few extra shortcuts like \type {**} in \type {a/**/b} which represents all descendants. The expressions (between square brackets) has to be valid \LUA\ and some preprocessing is done to resolve the built in functions. So, you might use code like: \starttyping my_lpeg_expression:match(text()) == "whatever" \stoptyping given that \type {my_lpeg_expression} is known. In the examples below we use the visualizer to show the steps. Some are shown more than once as part of a set. \stopsection \startsection[title={special cases}] \xmllshow{} \xmllshow{*} \xmllshow{.} \xmllshow{/} \stopsection \startsection[title={wildcards}] \xmllshow{*} \xmllshow{*:*} \xmllshow{/*} \xmllshow{/*:*} \xmllshow{*/*} \xmllshow{*:*/*:*} \xmllshow{a/*} \xmllshow{a/*:*} \xmllshow{/a/*} \xmllshow{/a/*:*} \xmllshow{/*} \xmllshow{/**} \xmllshow{/***} \stopsection \startsection[title={multiple steps}] \xmllshow{answer} \xmllshow{answer/test/*} \xmllshow{answer/test/child::} \xmllshow{answer/*} \xmllshow{answer/*[tag()='p' and position()=1 and text()!='']} \stopsection \startsection[title={pitfals}] \xmllshow{[oneof(lower(@encoding),'tex','context','ctx')]} \xmllshow{.[oneof(lower(@encoding),'tex','context','ctx')]} \stopsection \startsection[title={more special cases}] \xmllshow{**} \xmllshow{*} \xmllshow{..} \xmllshow{.} \xmllshow{//} \xmllshow{/} \xmllshow{**/} \xmllshow{**/*} \xmllshow{**/.} \xmllshow{**//} \xmllshow{*/} \xmllshow{*/*} \xmllshow{*/.} \xmllshow{*//} \xmllshow{/**/} \xmllshow{/**/*} \xmllshow{/**/.} \xmllshow{/**//} \xmllshow{/*/} \xmllshow{/*/*} \xmllshow{/*/.} \xmllshow{/*//} \xmllshow{./} \xmllshow{./*} \xmllshow{./.} \xmllshow{.//} \xmllshow{../} \xmllshow{../*} \xmllshow{../.} \xmllshow{..//} \stopsection \startsection[title={more wildcards}] \xmllshow{one//two} \xmllshow{one/*/two} \xmllshow{one/**/two} \xmllshow{one/***/two} \xmllshow{one/x//two} \xmllshow{one//x/two} \xmllshow{//x/two} \stopsection \startsection[title={special axis}] \xmllshow{descendant::whocares/ancestor::whoknows} \xmllshow{descendant::whocares/ancestor::whoknows/parent::} \xmllshow{descendant::whocares/ancestor::} \xmllshow{child::something/child::whatever/child::whocares} \xmllshow{child::something/child::whatever/child::whocares|whoknows} \xmllshow{child::something/child::whatever/child::(whocares|whoknows)} \xmllshow{child::something/child::whatever/child::!(whocares|whoknows)} \xmllshow{child::something/child::whatever/child::(whocares)} \xmllshow{child::something/child::whatever/child::(whocares)[position()>2]} \xmllshow{child::something/child::whatever[position()>2][position()=1]} \xmllshow{child::something/child::whatever[whocares][whocaresnot]} \xmllshow{child::something/child::whatever[whocares][not(whocaresnot)]} \xmllshow{child::something/child::whatever/self::whatever} There is also \type {last-match::} that starts with the last found set of nodes. This can save some run time when you do lots of tests combined with a same check afterwards. There is however one pitfall: you never know what is done with that last match in the setup that gets called nested. Take the following example: \starttyping \startbuffer[test] done 1 done 2 done 3 \stopbuffer \stoptyping One way to filter the content is this: \starttyping \xmldoif {#1} {/crap/crapa/crapb/crapc/crapd/crape} { some action } \stoptyping It is not unlikely that you will do something like this: \starttyping \xmlfirst {#1} {/crap/crapa/crapb/crapc/crapd/crape} { \xmlfirst{#1}{/crap/crapa/crapb/crapc/crapd/crape} } \stoptyping This means that the path is resolved twice but that can be avoided as follows: \starttyping \xmldoif{#1}{/crap/crapa/crapb/crapc/crapd/crape}{ \xmlfirst{#1}{last-match::} } \stoptyping But the next is now guaranteed to work: \starttyping \xmldoif{#1}{/crap/crapa/crapb/crapc/crapd/crape}{ \xmlfirst{#1}{last-match::} \xmllast{#1}{last-match::} } \stoptyping Because the first one can have done some lookup the last match can be replaced and the second call will give unexpected results. You can overcome this with: \starttyping \xmldoif{#1}{/crap/crapa/crapb/crapc/crapd/crape}{ \xmlpushmatch \xmlfirst{#1}{last-match::} \xmlpopmatch } \stoptyping Does it pay off? Here are some timings of a 10.000 times text and lookup like the previous (on a decent January 2016 laptop): \starttabulate[|r|l|] \NC 0.239 \NC \type {\xmldoif {...} {...}} \NC \NR \NC 0.292 \NC \type {\xmlfirst {...} {...}} \NC \NR \NC 0.538 \NC \type {\xmldoif {...} {...} + \xmlfirst {...} {...}} \NC \NR \NC 0.338 \NC \type {\xmldoif {...} {...} + \xmlfirst {...} {last-match::}} \NC \NR \NC 0.349 \NC \type {+ \xmldoif {...} {...} + \xmlfirst {...} {last-match::}-} \NC \NR \stoptabulate So, pushing and popping (the last row) is a bit slower than not doing that but it is still much faster than not using \type {last-match::} at all. As a shortcut you can use \type {=}, as in: \starttyping \xmlfirst{#1}{=} \stoptyping You can even do this: \starttyping \xmlall{#1}{last-match::/text()} \stoptyping or \starttyping \xmlall{#1}{=/text()} \stoptyping \stopsection \startsection[title={some more examples}] \xmllshow{/something/whatever} \xmllshow{something/whatever} \xmllshow{/**/whocares} \xmllshow{whoknows/whocares} \xmllshow{whoknows} \xmllshow{whocares[contains(text(),'f') or contains(text(),'g')]} \xmllshow{whocares/first()} \xmllshow{whocares/last()} \xmllshow{whatever/all()} \xmllshow{whocares/position(2)} \xmllshow{whocares/position(-2)} \xmllshow{whocares[1]} \xmllshow{whocares[-1]} \xmllshow{whocares[2]} \xmllshow{whocares[-2]} \xmllshow{whatever[3]/attribute(id)} \xmllshow{whatever[2]/attribute('id')} \xmllshow{whatever[3]/text()} \xmllshow{/whocares/first()} \xmllshow{/whocares/last()} \xmllshow{xml://whatever/all()} \xmllshow{whatever/all()} \xmllshow{//whocares} \xmllshow{..[2]} \xmllshow{../*[2]} \xmllshow{/(whocares|whocaresnot)} \xmllshow{/!(whocares|whocaresnot)} \xmllshow{/!whocares} \xmllshow{/interface/command/command(xml:setups:register)} \xmllshow{/interface/command[@name='xxx']/command(xml:setups:typeset)} \xmllshow{/arguments/*} \xmllshow{/sequence/first()} \xmllshow{/arguments/text()} \xmllshow{/sequence/variable/first()} \xmllshow{/interface/define[@name='xxx']/first()} \xmllshow{/parameter/command(xml:setups:parameter:measure)} \xmllshow{/(*:library|figurelibrary)/*:figure/*:label} \xmllshow{/(*:library|figurelibrary)/figure/*:label} \xmllshow{/(*:library|figurelibrary)/figure/label} \xmllshow{/(*:library|figurelibrary)/figure:*/label} \xmlshow {whatever//br[tag(1)='br']} \stopsection \stopchapter \stopcomponent