Ok, thanks. Does that mean it finds the nearest id attribute for any
node? Can I specify that it's the id attribute from the nearest
"ObjectType" node?
All axes in Xpath work the same way. On the child axis
child::* selects all element children and child::ObjectType selects
ObjectType children, so on the ancestor axis it would be
ancestor-or-self::ObjectType
rather than
ancestor-or-self::*
If you only want to consider ObjectType.
ancestor-or-self::*[ObjectType][1]/@id
that would select the id of the nerest ancestor that had an ObjectType
child.
Just as in the child axis ObjectType/@id selects the id of ObjectType,
but *[ObjectType]/@id selects the id of an element with an ObjectType child.
What purpose does the [1] serve?
as always [1] means [position()=1] and selects the first matching item
rather than all of them.
If you are at c
<a id="a">
<b id="b">
<c/>
then ancestor::*/@id seelcts all the id attributes of all ancestors, so
both id="a" and id="b" here.
ancestor::*[(_at_)id] selects all ancestor elements that have an id attribute
so ,a> and <b> here.
ancestor::*[(_at_)id][1] just seletcs the first of those (counting backwards)
s <b> here.
ancestor::*[(_at_)id][1]/@id
selects the id attribute of the nearest eleemnt that has an id
attribute, so id="b" here.
You could also write this as
(ancestor::*/@id)[last()]
but I find the first form more readable.
David
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