I've got an xml schema document that describes how the instance documents 
are layed out - can I only use a DTD to get ID/IDREF/IDREFS to work?

Thanks.
Robert.

"Martin Honnen" <mahotrash@y...> wrote in message 
news:%23vf$nwJgFHA.3656@T......
>
>
> Robert Rolls wrote:
>
>
>> I have some xml that has an IDREFs type holding multiple IDs how do I get 
>> back a node list of the items? Do I have to manual parse the attribute an 
>> dclaa nodeFromID or can I use an xpath expression id(@hrefs)/* (or 
>> something similar)
>
> As you have already seen the DOM in MSXML has nodeFromID to get from an ID 
> value to a node but you are right, if you have an IDREFS attribute which 
> has a space separated list of ID values then you first need to parse/split 
> up that value into ID values to then be able to use nodeFromID on a single 
> ID value.
>
> As for XPath there it is indeed simpler, the id function is smart enough 
> to process such a list to give you a node list (API) or node set (XSLT) 
> back:
>
> Example JScript program testing that feature:
>
> var xmlDocument = new ActiveXObject('Msxml2.DOMDocument.4.0');
> xmlDocument.async = false;
> xmlDocument.validateOnParse = true;
> var valid = xmlDocument.load('test2005070401.xml');
> if (valid) {
>   var nodeList = xmlDocument.selectNodes('id(/root/y[1]/@names)');
>   alert(nodeList.length);
> }
>
> when applied to the XML below yields two for the node list length:
>
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <!DOCTYPE root [
>   <!ELEMENT root (x+, y+)>
>   <!ELEMENT x EMPTY>
>   <!ELEMENT y EMPTY>
>   <!ATTLIST x
>     name ID #REQUIRED>
>   <!ATTLIST y
>     names IDREFS #IMPLIED>
> ]>
> <root>
>   <x name="x1" />
>   <x name="x2" />
>   <y names="x1 x2" />
> </root>
>
>
> Only problem is that an XSLT processor is not required to use an XML 
> parser reading external DTDs so relying on the use of the id function in 
> XPath in XSLT is not portable in general, you need to make sure that the 
> XSLT processor gets the information in the DTD.
>
> -- 
>
> Martin Honnen --- MVP XML
> http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/