XPath Query Returning Unexpected Results with XML Namespace in Node.js - Can't Extract Elements Correctly
I'm reviewing some code and I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I’m currently working with an XML document that includes namespaces, and I'm having trouble using XPath to query specific elements in Node.js. Here's a simplified version of my XML: ```xml <root xmlns:ns="http://example.com/ns"> <ns:item> <ns:name>Item 1</ns:name> <ns:value>100</ns:value> </ns:item> <ns:item> <ns:name>Item 2</ns:name> <ns:value>200</ns:value> </ns:item> </root> ``` In my Node.js application, I am using the `xml2js` library to parse this XML and then attempting to query it using XPath with the `xpath` package. My code looks like this: ```javascript const fs = require('fs'); const { parseStringPromise } = require('xml2js'); const xpath = require('xpath'); const { DOMParser } = require('xmldom'); async function queryXML() { const xml = fs.readFileSync('data.xml', 'utf8'); const parsedXml = await parseStringPromise(xml); const doc = new DOMParser().parseFromString(xml); const nodes = xpath.select('//ns:item', doc); nodes.forEach(node => { console.log(node.toString()); }); } queryXML(); ``` However, when I run this code, I’m getting an empty array from the XPath query. I’ve tried using the full namespace in the XPath expression like `//ns:item` but it still doesn't return any nodes. I’ve also verified that the XML is being parsed correctly; I can access elements using `parsedXml.root.item`. The `xpath` package documentation mentions that namespaces should be handled through a prefix map, but I’m not sure how to implement that in my case. I’ve tried passing a namespace map as the third argument to `xpath.select`, but I’m not getting any results either. Here’s how I attempted to implement it: ```javascript const namespaces = { 'ns': 'http://example.com/ns' }; const nodes = xpath.select('//ns:item', doc, namespaces); ``` This returns an empty selection as well. Can anyone point out what I might be doing wrong or how to properly handle namespaces with XPath in Node.js? Any insights or examples would be greatly appreciated! Am I missing something obvious? For context: I'm using Javascript on Ubuntu. I've been using Javascript for about a year now.