Finding unique value using Xpath

[Idee]

Hi

The structure of my XML is

<Sales>
<sale>
<items>
<item>
<id>1</id>
<saleid>5</saleid>
</item>
<item>
<id>2</id>
<saleid>5</saleid>
</item>
</items>
</sale>
<sale>
<items>
<item>
<id>1</id>
<saleid>6</saleid>
</item>
<item>
<id>2</id>
<saleid>6</saleid>
</item>
<item>
<id>3</id>
<saleid>6</saleid>
</item>
</items>
</sale>
</sales>

Set obj = CreateObject("Msxml.domdocument")
obj.loadXML (xml)

I am looking for saleid in the xml

Set nodelist = obj.selectNodes("//saleid")

It returns me the length of nodelist as 5 because each item in xml has saleid but for each sale, there is same saleid. What I want is that it should return me unique saleid only i.e nodelist length should be 2 instaed of 5. I can not change the structure of my XML.

Then in VB, I loop through the nodes and pass saleid to another programe.

How do I loop through in VB and then get the value of saleid? I am doing

For i = 0 To i = (nodelist.length - 1)
SaleID = NodeValue
Next

There is something wrong in line
SaleID = NodeValue

Your help is much appreciated

Thanks

 

[JontyMC]

For i = 0 To i = (nodelist.length - 1)
  SaleID = nodelist.childNodes[i].nodeValue
Next

Or:

For Each x in nodelist
  SaleID = x.nodeValue
Next

But better than would be to use the correct XPath for the nodes you want. What determines the saleids that you are looking for? For instance, to pull out the saleid for the first sale list where the id is 2, you would use:

Set nodelist = obj.selectNodes("Sales/sale[1]/items/item[id=2]/saleid")