How to 'select' from XML with namespaces?

Question

I have an XML document something like :::

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<?mso-application progid="Excel.Sheet"?>
<Workbook xmlns:ss="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet"
          xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
          xmlns:x="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel"
          xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet">
  <Worksheet ss:Name="Worksheet1">
    <Table>
      <Column ss:Width="100"></Column>

      <Row>
        <Cell ss:Index="1" ss:StyleID="headerStyle">
          <Data ss:Type="String">Submitted By</Data>
        </Cell>
      </Row>
      <Row>
        <Cell ss:Index="1" ss:StyleID="alternatingItemStyle">
          <Data ss:Type="String">Value1-0</Data>
        </Cell>
      </Row>
    </Table>
    <AutoFilter xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel"
                x:Range="R1C1:R1C5"></AutoFilter>
  </Worksheet>
</Workbook>

The problem is when trying to select Rows with

  <xsl:for-each select="//Row">
    <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
  </xsl:for-each>

It is not matching. I removed all of the name-spacing and it works fine. So, how do I get the 'select' to match Row?

Answer 1

If you don't care about the namespace, you can use the XPath `local-name()' function:

<xsl:for-each select="//*[local-name() = 'Row']">
  <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
</xsl:for-each>

Alternatively the same same thing can be expressed like this. I'm not certain if this is standard XPath and if all XPath implementations support it (ColdFusion does, so probably Java does as well). Maybe someone knows if this conforms to any standard.

<xsl:for-each select="//:Row">
  <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
</xsl:for-each>

Answer 2

Declare a namespace prefix for the namespace in your XSLT and then select using that prefix:

<xsl:stylesheet ... xmlns:os="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet">
  ...   
  <xsl:for-each select="//os:Row">
    ...
  </xsl:for-each>
  ...
</xsl:stylesheet>

This usually results in XPaths that are easy to read. However, XSLT/XPath tools generate the following, equivalent code:

<xsl:for-each select="//*[local-name()='Row' = and namespace-uri()='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet']">
   ...
</xsl:for-each>

Answer 3

Tomalek and ckarras give good answers, but I want to clarify the reasons behind them.

The elements you aren't matching are in the default namespace of the scope in which they occur in the doc, that is, they are in the namespace declared for that scope without a prefix (e.g.

xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet"

on the Workbook element). Even though the tagnames lack a namespace prefix, they are in a namespace.

However, XPath requires that all names of elements in a namespace be qualified with a prefix, or that the namespace be specified explicitly with namespace-uri() in a predicate. Hence, you must either use the local-name() function in a predicate to match the element name (and use the namespace-uri() function as well if there is a danger of name collisions across namespaces), or you must declare each namespace in which you wish to match elements in XPaths with a prefix, and qualify the element names with their namespace prefixes in the XPath expressions.