From its origins as a sublanguage of XSLT, XPath has come into its own as a key element of XML. XPath 2.0 has emerged as a robust language twice the size of its predecessor, complex and capable of standing on its own. This substantive volume, by the editor of the W3C XSLT 2.0 specification,
is the authoritative reference on XPath 2.0.

    It begins by thoroughly explaining the foundations, including XML schema and the evaluation context. Building on this knowledge, it then moves through literals and function calls, basic operators, path expressions, types, and the regular expressions of three new functions that greatly boost the power of XPath 2.0.

    This book is for experienced programmers who use XPath 2.0 and want a comprehensive understanding of it at every level. A basic knowledge of XML and Web architecture is essential.

Chapter 1 XPath 2.0 in context
Chapter 2 The data model
Chapter 3 The type system
Chapter 4 The evaluation context
Chapter 5 Basic constructs
Chapter 6 Operators on items
Chapter 7 Path expressions
Chapter 8 Sequence expressions
Chapter 9 Type expressions
Chapter 10 XPath functions
Chapter 11 Regular expressions
Appendix A XPath 2.0 syntax summary
Appendix B Operator precedence
Appendix C Compatibility with XPath 1.0
Appendix D Error codes