Inside XSLT

XPath Abbreviated Syntax

You can take advantage of a number of abbreviations in XPath syntax. Here are the rules:

• self::node()can be abbreviated as .

• parent::node()can be abbreviated as ..

• child::childname can be abbreviated as childname

• attribute::childname can be abbreviated as @childname

• /descendant-or-self::node()/can be abbreviated as //

For example, the location path .//PLANET is short for self::node()/descendant-or-self::node()/child::PLANET. You can also abbreviate the predicate expression [position() = 3] as [3], [position() = last()] as [last()], and so on. Using the abbreviated syntax makes XPath location paths a lot easier to use. The following list includes some examples of location paths that use abbreviated syntax:

• PLANET returns ...