XML

The XML plugin can parse and read data from XML documents. It uses XPath to access the XML document. XPath is a kind of query language for XML, similar to how SQL is a query language for databases. A description of how to use XPath is out of the scope of this manual; there are some free tutorials you can search for on the web.

Click here to open an example of the XML plugin.

Currently the XML plugin is read-only. You can read data but not change any values in the XML document.

Scripting

This object has no script interface, because when using JavaScript or TypeScript coding you can use the browser built-in APIs for parsing and serializing XML.

Loading an XML document

XML must be loaded as a string with the Load action. If you have a small snippet of XML, you can paste it directly in to the action parameter - but note in expressions a double-quote character (") must be repeated twice ("") to avoid ending the string, which can be inconvenient. Instead it is recommended to load an XML project file using the AJAX object. When the AJAX request completes, pass AJAX.LastData in to the Load action. Then the data from the file can be used.

XML conditions

For each node

Repeat the event once for each node returned by an XPath query. Typically this will be used with a query that returns multiple nodes, e.g. "/bookstore/book" to select all "book" nodes under "bookstore". In the For each node event, the current node is set to the one currently being iterated. This means relative XPaths, like "title/text()", work relative to the current node (in this case returning the text of the child "title" tag). For each node can also be nested, so you can iterate another list relative to the current node.

XML actions

Load

Load an XML document from a string. See 'Loading an XML document' above.

XML expressions

NodeCount

Return the number of nodes returned by an XPath expression. For example, this can count the number of elements with a given name. In a For each node event, the XPath is relative to the current node.

NumberValue

Return a number from an XPath expression. If multiple values are returned, only the first value is retrieved. In a For each node event, the XPath is relative to the current node.

StringValue

Return a string from an XPath expression. If multiple values are returned, only the first value is retrieved. In a For each node event, the XPath is relative to the current node.