DOMXPath
PHP Manual

DOMXPath::query

(PHP 5)

DOMXPath::query Evaluates the given XPath expression

Description

DOMNodeList DOMXPath::query ( string $expression [, DOMNode $contextnode ] )

Executes the given XPath expression.

Parameters

expression

The XPath expression to execute.

contextnode

The optional contextnode can be specified for doing relative XPath queries. By default, the queries are relative to the root element.

Return Values

Returns a DOMNodeList containing all nodes matching the given XPath expression. Any expression which do not return nodes will return an empty DOMNodeList.

Examples

Example #1 Getting all the english books

<?php

$doc 
= new DOMDocument;

// We don't want to bother with white spaces
$doc->preserveWhiteSpace false;

$doc->Load('book.xml');

$xpath = new DOMXPath($doc);

// We starts from the root element
$query '//book/chapter/para/informaltable/tgroup/tbody/row/entry[. = "en"]';

$entries $xpath->query($query);

foreach (
$entries as $entry) {
    echo 
"Found {$entry->previousSibling->previousSibling->nodeValue}," .
         
" by {$entry->previousSibling->nodeValue}\n";
}
?>

The above example will output:

Found The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
Found The Pearl, by John Steinbeck

We can also use the contextnode parameter to shorten our expression:

<?php

$doc 
= new DOMDocument;
$doc->preserveWhiteSpace false;

$doc->load('book.xml');

$xpath = new DOMXPath($doc);

$tbody $doc->getElementsByTagName('tbody')->item(0);

// our query is relative to the tbody node
$query 'row/entry[. = "en"]';

$entries $xpath->query($query$tbody);

foreach (
$entries as $entry) {
    echo 
"Found {$entry->previousSibling->previousSibling->nodeValue}," .
         
" by {$entry->previousSibling->nodeValue}\n";
}
?>

See Also


DOMXPath
PHP Manual