What is wrong with XPath query in SOAP response

Question

I need to create a xpath query that will return everything listed under availabilty element.

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
     <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"                  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
   <soap:Body>
           <GetAvailableTimesResult xmlns="http://schemas.test.net/x/version2/2007/06/" resultcode="SearchOk">
      <Availability>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T17:00:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T17:15:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T17:30:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T17:45:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T18:00:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T18:15:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T18:30:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T18:45:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T19:00:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T19:15:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T19:30:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T19:45:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T20:00:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T20:15:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T20:30:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T20:45:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T21:00:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T21:15:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T21:30:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T21:45:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T22:00:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T22:15:00"/>
        <Result available="true" time="2011-10-17T22:30:00"/>
             </Availability>
                 </GetAvailableTimesResult>
       </soap:Body>
 </soap:Envelope>

My xpath query returns malformed xpath expression error message, the query is as follows:

//xsi:[soap:body]//Availability

Solution 1

You need to define prefix for http://schemas.livebookings.net/Ingrid/version2/2007/06/ namespace in your XPath engine, e.g. prefix a, then:

//a:Availability

It will select a:Availability element.

Or you can use this XPath:

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

Solution 2

I need to create a xpath query that will return everything listed under availabilty element

Use:

/*/Soap:Body/x:GetAvailableTimesResult/x:Availability/node()

Where in your program you have associated (registered) the "x" prefix with the "http://schemas.livebookings.net/Ingrid/version2/2007/06/" namespace.

This is the most FAQ in XPath.

Search for "XPath default namespace" to get more detailed explanation.