Using Xpath With Default Namespace in C#

I've got an XML document with a default namespace. I'm using a XPathNavigator to select a set of nodes using Xpath as follows:

XmlElement myXML = ...;  
XPathNavigator navigator = myXML.CreateNavigator();
XPathNodeIterator result = navigator.Select("/outerelement/innerelement");

I am not getting any results back: I'm assuming this is because I am not specifying the namespace. How can I include the namespace in my select?

First - you don't need a navigator; SelectNodes / SelectSingleNode should suffice.

You may, however, need a namespace-manager - for example:

XmlElement el = ...; //TODO
XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(
    el.OwnerDocument.NameTable);
nsmgr.AddNamespace("x", el.OwnerDocument.DocumentElement.NamespaceURI);
var nodes = el.SelectNodes(@"/x:outerelement/x:innerelement", nsmgr);

You might want to try an XPath Visualizer tool to help you through.

XPathVisualizer is free, easy to use.

IMPORTANT: If you are using Windows 7/8 and don't see File, Edit and Help Menu items, please press ALT key.

For anyone looking for a quick hack solution, especially in those cases where you know the XML and don't need to worry about namespaces and all that, you can get around this annoying little "feature" by simply reading the file to a string and replacing the offensive attribute:

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
string fileData = File.ReadAllText(fileName);
fileData = fileData.Replace(" xmlns=\"", " whocares=\"");
using (StringReader sr = new StringReader(fileData))
{
   doc.Load(sr);
}

XmlNodeList nodeList = doc.SelectNodes("project/property");

I find this easier than all the other non-sense requiring a prefix for a default namespace when I'm dealing with a single file. Hope this helps.

When using XPath in .NET (via a navigator or SelectNodes/SelectSingleNode) on XML with namespaces you need to:

• provide your own XmlNamespaceManager

• and explicitly prefix all elements in XPath expression, which are in namespace.

The latter is (paraphrased from MS source linked below): because XPath 1.0 ignores default namespace specifications (xmlns="some_namespace"). So when you use element name without prefix it assumes null namespace.

That's why .NET implementation of XPath ignores namespace with prefix String.Empty in XmlNamespaceManager and allways uses null namespace.

See XmlNamespaceManager and UndefinedXsltContext don't handle default namespace for more information.

I find this "feature" very inconvenient because you cannot make old XPath namespace-aware by simply adding default namespace declaration, but that's how it works.

You can use XPath statement without using XmlNamespaceManager like this:

...
navigator.Select("//*[ local-name() = 'innerelement' and namespace-uri() = '' ]")
...

That is a simple way of selecting element within XML with default namespace definied.

The point is to use:

namespace-uri() = ''

which will found element with default namespace without using prefixes.

My answer extends the previous answer by Brandon. I used his example to create an extension method as follows:

static public class XmlDocumentExt
{
	static public XmlNamespaceManager GetPopulatedNamespaceMgr(this System.Xml.XmlDocument xd)
	{
		XmlNamespaceManager nmsp = new XmlNamespaceManager(xd.NameTable);
		XPathNavigator nav = xd.DocumentElement.CreateNavigator();
		foreach (KeyValuePair<string,string> kvp in nav.GetNamespacesInScope(XmlNamespaceScope.All))
		{
            string sKey = kvp.Key;
            if (sKey == "")
            {
                sKey = "default";
            }
			nmsp.AddNamespace(sKey, kvp.Value);
		}

		return nmsp;
	}
}

Then in my XML parsing code, I just add a single line:

XmlDocument xdCandidate = new XmlDocument();
xdCandidate.Load(sCandidateFile);
XmlNamespaceManager nmsp = xdCandidate.GetPopulatedNamespaceMgr();  // 1-line addition
XmlElement xeScoreData = (XmlElement)xdCandidate.SelectSingleNode("default:ScoreData", nmsp);

I really like this method because it is completely dynamic in terms of loading the namespaces from the source XML file, and it doesn't completely disregard the concept of XML namespaces so this can be used with XML that requires multiple namespaces for deconfliction.

I encountered a similar problem with a blank default namespace. In this example XML, I have a mix of elements with namespace prefixes, and a single element (DataBlock) without:

<src:SRCExample xmlns="urn:some:stuff:here" xmlns:src="www.test.com/src" xmlns:a="www.test.com/a" xmlns:b="www.test.com/b">
 <DataBlock>
  <a:DocID>
   <a:IdID>7</a:IdID>
  </a:DocID>
  <b:Supplimental>
   <b:Data1>Value</b:Data1>
   <b:Data2/>
   <b:Extra1>
    <b:More1>Value</b:More1>
   </b:Extra1>
  </b:Supplimental>
 </DataBlock>
</src:SRCExample>

I attempted to use an XPath that worked in XPath Visualizer, but did not work in my code:

  XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
  doc.Load( textBox1.Text );
  XPathNavigator nav = doc.DocumentElement.CreateNavigator();
  XmlNamespaceManager nsman = new XmlNamespaceManager( nav.NameTable );
  foreach ( KeyValuePair<string, string> nskvp in nav.GetNamespacesInScope( XmlNamespaceScope.All ) ) {
    nsman.AddNamespace( nskvp.Key, nskvp.Value );
  }
  
  XPathNodeIterator nodes;
  
  XPathExpression failingexpr = XPathExpression.Compile( "/src:SRCExample/DataBlock/a:DocID/a:IdID" );
  failingexpr.SetContext( nsman );
  nodes = nav.Select( failingexpr );
  while ( nodes.MoveNext() ) {
    string testvalue = nodes.Current.Value;
  }

I narrowed it down to the "DataBlock" element of the XPath, but couldn't make it work except by simply wildcarding the DataBlock element:

  XPathExpression workingexpr = XPathExpression.Compile( "/src:SRCExample/*/a:DocID/a:IdID" );
  failingexpr.SetContext( nsman );
  nodes = nav.Select( failingexpr );
  while ( nodes.MoveNext() ) {
    string testvalue = nodes.Current.Value;
  }

After much headscratching and googling (which landed me here) I decided to tackle the default namespace directly in my XmlNamespaceManager loader by changing it to:

  foreach ( KeyValuePair<string, string> nskvp in nav.GetNamespacesInScope( XmlNamespaceScope.All ) ) {
    nsman.AddNamespace( nskvp.Key, nskvp.Value );
    if ( nskvp.Key == "" ) {
      nsman.AddNamespace( "default", nskvp.Value );
    }
  }

So now "default" and "" point to the same namespace. Once I did this, the XPath "/src:SRCExample/default:DataBlock/a:DocID/a:IdID" returned my results just like I wanted. Hopefully this helps to clarify the issue for others.

In case the namespaces differ for outerelement and innerelement

XmlNamespaceManager manager = new XmlNamespaceManager(myXmlDocument.NameTable);
                            manager.AddNamespace("o", "namespaceforOuterElement");
                            manager.AddNamespace("i", "namespaceforInnerElement");
string xpath = @"/o:outerelement/i:innerelement"
// For single node value selection
XPathExpression xPathExpression = navigator.Compile(xpath );
string reportID = myXmlDocument.SelectSingleNode(xPathExpression.Expression, manager).InnerText;

// For multiple node selection
XmlNodeList myNodeList= myXmlDocument.SelectNodes(xpath, manager);

In my case adding a prefix wasn't practical. Too much of the xml or xpath were determined at runtime. Eventually I extended the methds on XmlNode. This hasn't been optimised for performance and it probably doesn't handle every case but it's working for me so far.

    public static class XmlExtenders
{

    public static XmlNode SelectFirstNode(this XmlNode node, string xPath)
    {
        const string prefix = "pfx";
        XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = GetNsmgr(node, prefix);
        string prefixedPath = GetPrefixedPath(xPath, prefix);
        return node.SelectSingleNode(prefixedPath, nsmgr);
    }

    public static XmlNodeList SelectAllNodes(this XmlNode node, string xPath)
    {
        const string prefix = "pfx";
        XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = GetNsmgr(node, prefix);
        string prefixedPath = GetPrefixedPath(xPath, prefix);
        return node.SelectNodes(prefixedPath, nsmgr);
    }

    public static XmlNamespaceManager GetNsmgr(XmlNode node, string prefix)
    {
        string namespaceUri;
        XmlNameTable nameTable;
        if (node is XmlDocument)
        {
            nameTable = ((XmlDocument) node).NameTable;
            namespaceUri = ((XmlDocument) node).DocumentElement.NamespaceURI;
        }
        else
        {
            nameTable = node.OwnerDocument.NameTable;
            namespaceUri = node.NamespaceURI;
        }
        XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(nameTable);
        nsmgr.AddNamespace(prefix, namespaceUri);
        return nsmgr;
    }

    public static string GetPrefixedPath(string xPath, string prefix)
    {
        char[] validLeadCharacters = "@/".ToCharArray();
        char[] quoteChars = "\'\"".ToCharArray();

        List<string> pathParts = xPath.Split("/".ToCharArray()).ToList();
        string result = string.Join("/",
                                    pathParts.Select(
                                        x =>
                                        (string.IsNullOrEmpty(x) ||
                                         x.IndexOfAny(validLeadCharacters) == 0 ||
                                         (x.IndexOf(':') > 0 &&
                                          (x.IndexOfAny(quoteChars) < 0 || x.IndexOfAny(quoteChars) > x.IndexOf(':'))))
                                            ? x
                                            : prefix + ":" + x).ToArray());
        return result;
    }
}

Then in your code just use something like

        XmlDocument document = new XmlDocument();
        document.Load(pathToFile);
        XmlNode node = document.SelectFirstNode("/rootTag/subTag");

Hope this helps

I used the hacky-but-useful approach described by SpikeDog above. It worked very well until I threw an xpath expression at it that used pipes to combine multiple paths.

So I rewrote it using regular expressions, and thought I'd share:

public string HackXPath(string xpath_, string prefix_)
{
    return System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(xpath_, @"(^(?![A-Za-z0-9\-\.]+::)|[A-Za-z0-9\-\.]+::|[@|/|\[])(?'Expression'[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9\-\.]*)", x =>
                {
                    int expressionIndex = x.Groups["Expression"].Index - x.Index;
                    string before = x.Value.Substring(0, expressionIndex);
                    string after = x.Value.Substring(expressionIndex, x.Value.Length - expressionIndex);
                    return String.Format("{0}{1}:{2}", before, prefix_, after);
                });
}

Or, if anyone should be using an XPathDocument, like me:

XPathDocument xdoc = new XPathDocument(file);
XPathNavigator nav = xdoc.CreateNavigator();
XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(nav.NameTable);
nsmgr.AddNamespace("y", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003");
XPathNodeIterator nodeIter = nav.Select("//y:PropertyGroup", nsmgr);

1] If you have a XML file without any prefix in the namespace:

<bookstore xmlns="http://www.contoso.com/books">
…
</bookstore>

you have this workaround:

XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(@"C:\Temp\books.xml");
// ignore the namespace as there is a single default namespace:
reader.Namespaces = false;
XPathDocument document = new XPathDocument(reader);
XPathNavigator navigator = document.CreateNavigator();
XPathNodeIterator nodes = navigator.Select("//book");

2] If you have a XML file with a prefix in the namespace:

<bookstore xmlns:ns="http://www.contoso.com/books">
…
</bookstore>

Use this:

XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(@"C:\Temp\books.xml");
XPathDocument document = new XPathDocument(reader);
XPathNavigator navigator = document.CreateNavigator();
XPathNodeIterator nodes = navigator.Select("//book");

Of course, you can use a namespace manage if needed:

XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(@"C:\Temp\books.xml");
XPathDocument document = new XPathDocument(reader);
XPathNavigator navigator = document.CreateNavigator();
XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(reader.NameTable);
nsmgr.AddNamespace("ns", "http://www.contoso.com/book");
XPathNodeIterator nodes = navigator.Select("//book", nsmgr);

I think that it's the easiest way to make the code working in the most cases.

I hope this help to solve this Microsoft issue…

This one still keeps bugging me. I've done some testing now, so hopefully I can help you with this.

This is the source from Microsoft, which is the key to the problem

The important paragraph is here:

> XPath treats the empty prefix as the null namespace. In other words, only prefixes mapped to namespaces can be used in XPath queries. This means that if you want to query against a namespace in an XML document, even if it is the default namespace, you need to define a prefix for it.

In essence, you have to remember the XPath parser uses the Namespace URI - with the design that the prefix is interchangeable. This is so, when programming, you can assign whatever prefix we want - as long as the URI matches.

For clarity with examples:

Example A:

<data xmlns:nsa="http://example.com/ns"><nsa:a>World</nsa:a></data>

This has a NULL default URI (xmlns= is not defined). Because of this /data/nsa:a returns "World".

Example B:

<data xmlns:nsa="http://example.com/ns" xmlns="https://standardns/"><nsa:a>World</nsa:a></data>

This document has a named default prefix https://standardns/. XPathNavigator.Execute with /data/nsa:a therefore returns no results. MS considers that the XML namespace uri for data should be NULL, and the namespace URI for data is actually "https://standardns/";. Essentially XPath is looking for /NULL:data/nsa:a - although this won't work, as you can't refer to the NULL URI as "NULL" as a prefix. NULL prefix is the default in all XPath - hence the issue.

How do we solve this?

XmlNamespaceManager result = new XmlNamespaceManager(xDoc.NameTable);
result.AddNamespace("DEFAULT", "https://standardns/");
result.AddNamespace("nsa", "http://example.com/ns");

In this way, we can now refer to a as /DEFAULT:data/nsa:a

Example C:

<data><a xmlns="https://standardns/">World</a></data>

In this example data is in the NULL namespace. a is in the default namespace "https://standardns/";. /data/a should not work, according to Microsoft, because a is in the NS https://standardns/ and data is in the namespace NULL. <a> is therefore hidden (except by doing weird "ignore the namespace" hacks) and cannot be selected upon as-is. This is essentially the root cause - you should not be able to select "a" and "data" with no prefixes for both, as this would assume that they were in the same namespace, and they aren't!

How do we solve this?

XmlNamespaceManager result = new XmlNamespaceManager(xDoc.NameTable);
result.AddNamespace("DEFAULT", "https://standardns/");

In this way, we can now refer to a as /data/DEFAULT:a as data is selected from the NULL namespace, and a is selected from the new prefix "DEFAULT". The important thing in this example is that the namespace prefix does not need to remain the same. It's perfectly acceptable to refer to a URI namespace with a different prefix in your code, as to what is written in the document you are processing.

Hope this helps some people!

In this case, it is probably namespace resolution which is the cause of the problem, but it is also possible that your XPath expression is not correct in itself. You may want to evaluate it first.

Here is the code using an XPathNavigator.

//xNav is the created XPathNavigator.
XmlNamespaceManager mgr = New XmlNamespaceManager(xNav.NameTable);
mgr.AddNamespace("prefix", "http://tempuri.org/");

XPathNodeIterator result = xNav.Select("/prefix:outerelement/prefix:innerelement", mgr);