xpath dates comparison

Question

I'm trying to filter elements based on an attribute that is a date in the format yyyy-MM-dd.

My XML looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<root>
  <article title="wired" pub-date="2010-11-22" />
  <article title="Plus 24" pub-date="2010-11-22" />
  <article title="Finance" pub-date="2010-10-25" />
</root>

My xpath attempt:

'//article[xs:date(./@pub-date) > xs:date("2010-11-15")]'

Using xpath 2.0 - would avoid adding a schema unless absolutely necessary.

From comments:

I believe I must be missing something then. Is it possible that I need to specify something else for xs:date to work? Maybe a xs: namespace definition?

@Razor: What is the question? See no problem here, just style: a wouldn't use a starting `./` step, only for brevity one could use (for other expression) `.//` instead of `descendant::`. — , Dec 03 '10 at 16:40
Your XPath 2.0 expression should do, I would use `//article[xs:date(@pub-date) gt xs:date("2010-11-15")]` however which is a bit shorter and more compact. — Martin Honnen, Dec 03 '10 at 16:53
Works for me in Oxygen/XML. Why do you think this doesn't work? — Jim Garrison, Dec 03 '10 at 17:55
I believe I must be missing something then. Is it possible that I need to specify something else for xs:date to work? Maybe a xs: namespace definition? — Razor, Dec 03 '10 at 19:44

Dimitre Novatchev · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-06T14:03:24.527

32

In both XPath 1.0 and 2.0 you can use:

//article[number(translate(@pub-date,'-','')) > 20101115]

Your XPath 2.0 expression is correct, using Saxon 9.0.3 this transformation:

<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

    <xsl:template match="/">
      <xsl:sequence select="//article[xs:date(./@pub-date) > xs:date('2010-11-15')]"/>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when applied on the provided XML document:

<root>
  <article title="wired" pub-date="2010-11-22" />
  <article title="Plus 24" pub-date="2010-11-22" />
  <article title="Finance" pub-date="2010-10-25" />
</root>

produces the wanted, correct result:

<article title="wired" pub-date="2010-11-22"/>
<article title="Plus 24" pub-date="2010-11-22"/>

edited Dec 06 '10 at 14:03

answered Dec 03 '10 at 18:22

Dimitre Novatchev

240,661
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nice solution, +1 - it's a workaround tho, but will mark this as the answer if I cannot find what's wrong with my code – Razor Dec 03 '10 at 19:48
@Razor: I have updated my answer with a complete XSLT 2.0 solution showing that your XPath 2.0 expression *is* correct. – Dimitre Novatchev Dec 03 '10 at 19:58
Not working even after adding an inline XML schema, so the issue has to be my xpath parser (velocity XMLtool). Your first solution *almost* works - you have an extra `)` before the closing `]`, please correct that and I'll mark this as an answer. – Razor Dec 06 '10 at 10:26

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 26 '11 at 05:59

2

<cfset startdatetime = Now() >
<cfset nNow = LSParseNumber(DateFormat(DateAdd('n', -15,startdatetime),'yyyyMMddHHmm')) >

number(substring(concat(translate(text(),'-: ',''),'0000000000000000'),1,12))<=#nNow#

edited Nov 26 '11 at 05:59

animuson

53,861
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answered Oct 06 '11 at 14:20

barry austra

49
1

xpath dates comparison

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