Using Xpath With Default Namespace in C#

macleojw picture macleojw · Feb 25, 2009 · Viewed 77.2k times · Source

I've got an XML document with a default namespace. I'm using a XPathNavigator to select a set of nodes using Xpath as follows:

XmlElement myXML = ...;  
XPathNavigator navigator = myXML.CreateNavigator();
XPathNodeIterator result = navigator.Select("/outerelement/innerelement");

I am not getting any results back: I'm assuming this is because I am not specifying the namespace. How can I include the namespace in my select?

Answer

Marc Gravell picture Marc Gravell · Feb 25, 2009

First - you don't need a navigator; SelectNodes / SelectSingleNode should suffice.

You may, however, need a namespace-manager - for example:

XmlElement el = ...; //TODO
XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(
    el.OwnerDocument.NameTable);
nsmgr.AddNamespace("x", el.OwnerDocument.DocumentElement.NamespaceURI);
var nodes = el.SelectNodes(@"/x:outerelement/x:innerelement", nsmgr);