Saxon

You appear to be using the JAXP XPath interface. This was designed for XPath 1.0 which has only four datatypes: number, string, boolean, and node-set. So yes, with this API if you want to select a single node then it has to be handled as a singleton node-set.

I would strongly recommend moving to the Saxon s9api interface, which handles the whole XPath 2.0/3.1 data model with much better type safety than JAXP.

(This might also explain why you were unable to use my suggestion in another message. JAXP can't properly handle an XPath expression that returns a sequence of strings.)

Mi Michael,

I am a little bit confused. I am using the following statements in my coding:

		// Following is specific to Saxon: should be in a properties file
		System.setProperty("javax.xml.xpath.XPathFactory:" + NamespaceConstant.OBJECT_MODEL_SAXON,
				"net.sf.saxon.xpath.XPathFactoryImpl");

		xpf = XPathFactory.newInstance(NamespaceConstant.OBJECT_MODEL_SAXON);
		xpe = xpf.newXPath();
		System.err.println("Loaded XPath Provider " + xpe.getClass().getName());

In the console I get:

Loaded XPath Provider net.sf.saxon.xpath.XPathEvaluator

It seems, that I am using the Saxon s9api interface ? Or am I wrong?

Regards Mario

You are using Saxon's implementation of JAXP.

Please see http://www.saxonica.com/documentation/#!xpath-api for details.

Hello Michael,

thanks. But s9api requires the EE-edition? Am I right?

BTW: I ordered you book (XSLT 2.0 and XPATH 2.0) yesterday :-)

Thanks, Regards Mario

No, the s9api interface is available in Saxon-HE.