How to flatten an XML file into a set of xpath expressions?

Question

Consider I have the following example XML file:

Answer 1

You could do this pretty easily with XSLT. Looking at your examples, it seems like you only want the XPath of elements that contain text. If that's not the case, let me know and I can update the XSLT.

I created a new input example to show how it handles siblings with the same name. In this case,

.

XML Input

    

        foo
        bar
        
            00.00
            USD
        
        1
    
    

        some name
        some description
        
            00.01
            USD
        
        2
    

XSLT 1.0

Output

/create[1]/article[1]/name[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/description[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/price[1]/amount[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/price[1]/currency[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/id[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/name[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/description[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/price[1]/amount[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/price[1]/currency[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/id[1]

---

UPDATE

For the XSLT to work for all elements, simply remove the [text()] predicate from match="*[text()]". This will output the path for every element. If you don't want the path output for elements that contain other elements (like create, article, and price) add the predicate [not(*)]. Here's an updated example:

New XML Input

    

        
        
        
            
            
        
        
    
    

        some name
        some description
        
            00.01
            USD
        
        2
    

XSLT 1.0

Output

/create[1]/article[1]/name[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/description[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/price[1]/amount[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/price[1]/currency[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/id[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/name[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/description[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/price[1]/amount[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/price[1]/currency[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/id[1]

If you remove the [not(*)] predicate, this is what the output looks like (a path is output for every element):

/create[1]
/create[1]/article[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/name[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/description[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/price[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/price[1]/amount[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/price[1]/currency[1]
/create[1]/article[1]/id[1]
/create[1]/article[2]
/create[1]/article[2]/name[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/description[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/price[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/price[1]/amount[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/price[1]/currency[1]
/create[1]/article[2]/id[1]

Here's another version of the XSLT that is about 65% faster: