XML Module Reference

The xml module provides functions for querying XML content using XPath expressions.

xml.xpath

Run an XPath expression on XML content:

result = xml.xpath(
    content = "<root><item>value</item></root>",
    expression = "/root/item/text()",
    type = "STRING",
)

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
content	string	required	The XML content to query
expression	string	required	XPath expression to evaluate
type	string	required	Return type: STRING, BOOLEAN, NUMBER

Return Types

Type	Description	Example Result
STRING	Text content or string value	"example"
BOOLEAN	Boolean result of expression	True or False
NUMBER	Numeric value	42.0

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Examples

Extract Text Value

Get the text content of an element:

xml_content = """
<project>
    <artifactId>my-project</artifactId>
    <version>1.2.3</version>
</project>
"""

version = xml.xpath(
    content = xml_content,
    expression = "/project/version/text()",
    type = "STRING",
)
# version = "1.2.3"

Check Element Existence

Check if an element exists:

has_snapshot = xml.xpath(
    content = pom_content,
    expression = "boolean(/project/version[contains(text(), 'SNAPSHOT')])",
    type = "BOOLEAN",
)
# has_snapshot = True or False

Count Elements

Count matching elements:

dep_count = xml.xpath(
    content = pom_content,
    expression = "count(/project/dependencies/dependency)",
    type = "NUMBER",
)
# dep_count = 5.0

Extract Attribute Value

Get an attribute value:

xml_content = """
<root>
    <item id="123" name="example"/>
</root>
"""

item_id = xml.xpath(
    content = xml_content,
    expression = "/root/item/@id",
    type = "STRING",
)
# item_id = "123"

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Use Cases

Reading pom.xml (Maven)

Extract Maven project coordinates:

def _read_maven_coords(ctx):
    pom = ctx.read_path(ctx.path("pom.xml"))

    group_id = xml.xpath(
        content = pom,
        expression = "/project/groupId/text()",
        type = "STRING",
    )
    artifact_id = xml.xpath(
        content = pom,
        expression = "/project/artifactId/text()",
        type = "STRING",
    )
    version = xml.xpath(
        content = pom,
        expression = "/project/version/text()",
        type = "STRING",
    )

    ctx.console.info(group_id + ":" + artifact_id + ":" + version)
    return ctx.success()

core.dynamic_transform(impl = _read_maven_coords)

Validating XML Structure

Verify required elements exist:

def _validate_manifest(ctx):
    manifest = ctx.read_path(ctx.path("AndroidManifest.xml"))

    has_internet = xml.xpath(
        content = manifest,
        expression = "boolean(//uses-permission[@android:name='android.permission.INTERNET'])",
        type = "BOOLEAN",
    )

    if not has_internet:
        return ctx.error("Missing INTERNET permission in manifest")

    return ctx.success()

Conditional Transformations

Apply transformations based on XML content:

def _update_if_snapshot(ctx):
    pom = ctx.read_path(ctx.path("pom.xml"))

    is_snapshot = xml.xpath(
        content = pom,
        expression = "contains(/project/version/text(), 'SNAPSHOT')",
        type = "BOOLEAN",
    )

    if is_snapshot:
        ctx.console.warn("Syncing SNAPSHOT version - this may be unstable")

    return ctx.success()

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XPath Reference

Common XPath expressions:

Expression	Description
/root/child	Select child of root
//element	Select element anywhere in document
/root/item/text()	Get text content of item
/root/item/@attr	Get attribute value
count(//item)	Count matching elements
boolean(//item)	Check if element exists
//item[1]	First matching item
//item[@id='123']	Item with specific attribute value
contains(text(), 'value')	Text contains substring

Note

XPath namespaces are not currently supported. For namespaced XML, you may need to use string operations or local-name() function.

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Next Steps

• Core Module Reference - Dynamic transformations
• TOML Module Reference - Parsing TOML files