XPath Property

Provides a way to point to a specific element in the response.

Syntax

property XPath: String read get_XPath write set_XPath;

Default Value

Remarks

XPath may be set to navigate to specific elements within the JSON document. This will be the path to a specified value within the document. Since arrays in JSON only contain values, and no associated object name, an empty name will be used for these values. To reach an array element at position 1, the path must be set to "[1]". In addition, a root element named "json" will be added to each JSON document in the parser.

BuildDOM must be set to True prior to parsing the document for the XPath functionality to be available.

The XPath property accepts both XPath and JSONPath formats. Please see notes below on both formats.

XPath

The path is a series of one or more element accessors separated by '/'. The path can be absolute (starting with '/') or relative to the current XPath location.

The following are possible values for an element accessor:


'name'	A particular element name.
[i]	The i-th subelement of the current element.
..	the parent of the current element.

When XPath is set to a valid path the following properties are updated:

BuildDOM must be set to True prior to parsing the document for the XPath functionality to be available.

Simple JSON document

{
  "firstlevel": {
    "one": "value",
    "two": ["first", "second"],
    "three": "value three"
  }
}

Example (Setting XPath)


Document root	JsonControl.XPath = "/"
Specific Element	JsonControl.XPath = "/json/firstlevel/one/"
i-th Child	JsonControl.XPath = "/json/firstlevel/two/[i]/"

Note: When using XPath notation the root element is always referred to as "json". As in the above examples this means all paths will begin with "/json".

JSONPath

This property implements a subset of the JSONPath notation. This may be set to point to a specific element in the JSON document.

The JSONPath is a series of one or more accessors in either dot-notation

$.store.book[0].title

Or bracket-notation

$['store']['book'][0]['title']

After setting XPath the following properties are populated:

Examples

Given the following JSON document:

{
    "store": {
        "book": [
            {
                "category": "reference",
                "author": "Nigel Rees",
                "title": "Sayings of the Century",
                "price": 8.95
            },
            {
                "category": "fiction",
                "author": "Evelyn Waugh",
                "title": "Sword of Honour",
                "price": 12.99
            },
            {
                "category": "fiction",
                "author": "Herman Melville",
                "title": "Moby Dick",
                "isbn": "0-553-21311-3",
                "price": 8.99
            },
            {
                "category": "fiction",
                "author": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
                "title": "The Lord of the Rings",
                "isbn": "0-395-19395-8",
                "price": 22.99
            }
        ],
        "bicycle": {
            "color": "red",
            "price": 19.95
        }
    },
}

The following code shows several examples.

Get the first book's author:

json.XPath = "$.store.book[0].author";
Console.WriteLine(json.XText);
 
//Output
//"Nigel Rees"

Select the first book and inspect the children:

json.XPath = "$.store.book[0]";
Console.WriteLine("Child Count: " + json.XChildren.Count);
Console.WriteLine(json.XChildren[1].Name + ": " + json.XChildren[1].XText);
 
//Output
//Child Count: 4
//author: "Nigel Rees"

Get the price of the second book:

json.XPath = "$['store']['book'][1]['price']";
Console.WriteLine(json.XText);
 
//Output
//12.99

Get the second to last book's author:

json.XPath = "$['store']['book'][last() - 1]['author']";
Console.WriteLine(json.XText);
Console.WriteLine(json.XPath); //Note that "last() - 1" is resolved to "3".
 
//Output
//"Herman Melville"
//$['store']['book'][3]['author']

Display the full subtree at the current path:

json.XPath = "$.store.book[0]";
Console.WriteLine(json.XSubTree);
 
//Output
//            {
//                "category": "reference",
//                "author": "Nigel Rees",
//                "title": "Sayings of the Century",
//                "price": 8.95
//            }