help simplify xpath expression

[ddiamond]

I'm attempt to create an xpath expression that will return the value of the soapAction attribute for a given operation within a WSDL file. Here is a piece of the WSDL file:

<wsdlperation name="ProcessNA">
<soapperation soapAction="

http://rebusis.com/webservices/gcs/IntegrationService/ProcessNA"

style="document" />
<wsdl:input>
<soap:body use="literal" />
</wsdl:input>
<wsdlutput>
<soap:body use="literal" />
</wsdlutput>
</wsdlperation>

The following xpath expression does return the soapAction attribute, but it is messy. I'm wondering if anyone can come up with a cleaner xpath expression that does the same thing.

//wsdlperation[@name='ProcessNA']/*[@soapAction!='']/@soapAction

 

[k5tm]

It is not messy at all, but rather precise!

This XPath expression specifies a nodeset containing attribute nodes [ul][li]with the name 'soapAction' which are subordinate to[/li][li]an element node (of any name) that contains a nonempty soapAction attribute, and which is subordinate to[/li][li]an element named operation with the namespace alias wsdl that also contains an attributed named name the value of which is ProcessNA.[/li][/ul]


Which if these constraints would you wish to omit? If you can safely omit a constraint, then the expression could be simplified.

Tom Morrison

http://www.liant.com

 

[ddiamond]

Well, I don't really care if the soapAction attribute is empty, only that it exists. So I could get rid of !=''.

//wsdlperation[@name='ProcessNA']/*[@soapAction]/@soapAction