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

Using libxml it seems this works:

http://xmlsoft.org/examples/xpath1.c

 int 
register_namespaces(xmlXPathContextPtr xpathCtx, const xmlChar* nsList) {
    xmlChar* nsListDup;
    xmlChar* prefix;
    xmlChar* href;
    xmlChar* next;

    assert(xpathCtx);
    assert(nsList);

    nsListDup = xmlStrdup(nsList);
    if(nsListDup == NULL) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Error: unable to strdup namespaces list\n");
    return(-1); 
    }

    next = nsListDup; 
    while(next != NULL) {
    /* skip spaces */
    while((*next) == ' ') next++;
    if((*next) == '\0') break;

    /* find prefix */
    prefix = next;
    next = (xmlChar*)xmlStrchr(next, '=');
    if(next == NULL) {
        fprintf(stderr,"Error: invalid namespaces list format\n");
        xmlFree(nsListDup);
        return(-1); 
    }
    *(next++) = '\0';   

    /* find href */
    href = next;
    next = (xmlChar*)xmlStrchr(next, ' ');
    if(next != NULL) {
        *(next++) = '\0';   
    }

    /* do register namespace */
    if(xmlXPathRegisterNs(xpathCtx, prefix, href) != 0) {
        fprintf(stderr,"Error: unable to register NS with prefix=\"%s\" and href=\"%s\"\n", prefix, href);
        xmlFree(nsListDup);
        return(-1); 
    }
    }

    xmlFree(nsListDup);
    return(0);
}