Quick Syntaxy Question: XPath & 'ancestor'

[nspreitzer]

One MILLION dollars to the person who can answer this for me.

Using VBA, I wrote code similar to what is below. That last line is the one in question. If my XPath query is written "ancestor::*", the code works correctly. However, when I replace the astrix with a specific element name, as I have below, the code returns an empty node list. I have tried several different element names which are ancestors to the initial node [ndeTopLevel], but the result is always the same.

I'm using msxml version 6.0.

Any ideas?

Sub Argh()

Dim xmldoc As DOMDocument
Dim ndeTopLevel As IXMLDOMNode
Dim nlstClasses As IXMLDOMNodeList

Set xmldoc = New DOMDocument

xmldoc.Load "c:\blahblahblah.xml"
xmldoc.setProperty "SelectionLanguage", "XPath"

Set ndeTopLevel = xmldoc.FirstChild.FirstChild.FirstChild
Set nlst = ndeTopLevel.selectNodes("ancestor::Group")

End Sub

 

[tsuji]

[0] If you have to declare ndeTopLevel and the missing dim for nlst (I hope it is not meant to be nlstClasses by typos), it should be done properly.
[tt]
Dim xmldoc As DOMDocument
[red]'[/red]Dim ndeTopLevel As IXMLDOMNode
Dim ndeTopLevel As [red]IXMLDOMElement[/red]
Dim nlstClasses As IXMLDOMNodeList [blue]'???[/blue]
[blue]Dim nlst As IXMLDOMSelection[/blue]
[/tt]
[1] Then you've get to the ndeTopLevel properly
>Set ndeTopLevel = xmldoc.FirstChild.FirstChild.FirstChild
[tt]Set ndeTopLevel = xmldoc.[red]DocuemntElement.[/red]FirstChild.FirstChild.FirstChild[/tt]
supposing your xml design has sufficient depth to allow it to make sense. (Otherwise, it is no good by its own.)

[2] After those ascertained positive, it gets its way properly for nlst.

 

[nspreitzer]

Typos fixed below. Problem remains.

Sub Argh()

Dim xmldoc As DOMDocument
Dim ndeTopLevel As IXMLDOMNode
Dim nlst As IXMLDOMNodeList

Set xmldoc = New DOMDocument

xmldoc.Load "c:\blahblahblah.xml"
xmldoc.setProperty "SelectionLanguage", "XPath"

'this does grab a nested element.
Set ndeTopLevel = xmldoc.FirstChild.FirstChild.FirstChild
Set nlst = ndeTopLevel.selectNodes("ancestor::Group")

End Sub

 

[nspreitzer]

Question answered:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3865906&SiteID=1&mode=1

 

[tsuji]

I won't comment on pieces of supplementary info not disclosed. However, with the strict info avail, the corrections I made stand and relevant. But, you know, do whatever you are pleased.