XPATHS and Default Namespaces

Question

What is the story behind XPath and support for namespaces? Did XPath as a specification precede namespaces? If I have a document where elements have been given a default na

Answer 1

You need local-name():

http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath#function-local-name

To crib from http://web.archive.org/web/20100810142303/http://jcooney.net:80/archive/2005/08/09/6517.aspx:

This expression will match the “bar” element:

  //*[local-name()='bar'] 

This one won't:

 //bar