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Table Of Contents
Related topics:
The PlanetPress Suite (Page 3)
Data Selection (Page 103)
Data Selection Objects (Page 104)
Add a Data Selection Object (Page 105)
Define Email, PDF, and Index Information for PlanetPress Image (Page 114)
Define Index Terms for PlanetPress Search (Page 114)
9.2.11 About PlanetPress Design XPath
What is XPath?
In supporting XML programming functionality, PlanetPress Design data selection makes use of a proprietary
version of XPath. The proprietary version of XPath is derived from the W3C standard XPath. In the context of
PlanetPress Design, XPath selects data from the XML file that is associated with a PlanetPress Design
document and is used in the data emulation.
In XPath, there are various types of nodes: element, attribute, text, namespace, processing-instruction,
comment, and document (root) nodes. XML documents are treated as trees of nodes. The root of the tree is
called the document node (or root node).
The characteristics of PlanetPress Talk XPath are:
Uses a 1-based system. This means XPath accesses the first element in the XML structure using the
predicate [1]. W3C XPath also uses base 1.
Returns a single value only. Each time PlanetPress Talk XPath encounters an element that is not indexed
in the XML structure, an index of [1] is returned instead, thus returning the value of the first element.
Returns the content of the specified tag—meaning the W3C XPath command /text() is inherent in
PlanetPress Design XPath.
Does not read values or attributes of the top level node if the Second Element emulation option is
enabled in the Data Selector dialog box.
PlanetPress Design XPath uses the following subset of W3C XPath:
Syntax Description
/agency/crew Navigates the data file content in a standard way
/agency/crew[1] PlanetPress Design XPath supports simple indexing embedded in square brackets.
Result
Selects the first crew element that is the child of the agency element.
* Matches any element node
/name() Obtains the name of the element’s tag
@ Obtains an attribute
Any remaining XPath expressions and syntax used by W3C XPath are not implemented by PlanetPress Talk
XPath.
9.2.12 Associate XML Data Selection with Objects
To add a data selection object using the Data Selection Object properties dialog box:
1. Display the Data Selection Object properties dialog box.
Selecting Data - Detailed Directions
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