xpath parent attribute of selection

Question

Syntax of the xml document:

  
    Z 
    Z__2
    Z__3   
           


        

Answer 1

You already have a good accepted answer, but here are some other helpful expressions:

• //z/ancestor::x/@name - Find elements anywhere, then find all the ancestor elements, and then the name="…" attributes of them.

• //z/../../@name - Find the elements, and then find the parent node(s) of those, and then the parent node(s) of those, and then the name attribute(s) of the final set.

  • This is the same as: //z/parent::*/parent::*/@name, where the * means "an element with any name".

• The // is useful, but inefficient. If you know that the hierarchy is x/y/z, then it is more efficient to do something like //x[y/z]/@name