The Getting to know XPATH chapter introduces you to the XPath usage and syntax.

About XPath

XPath is a language for finding information in an XML document. In other words:

•XPath is a syntax for defining parts of an XML document

•XPath uses path expressions to navigate in XML documents

•XPath contains a library of standard functions

•XPath is a major element in XSLT

•XPath is a W3C recommendation

XPath uses path expressions to select nodes or node-sets in an XML document. These path expressions look very much like the expressions you see when you work with a traditional computer file system.

XPath includes over 100 built-in functions. There are functions for string values, numeric values, date and time comparison, node and QName manipulation, sequence manipulation, Boolean values, and more.