XPath: How to check if an attribute exists?

Question

Given the following XML, how do I write an XPath query to pull nodes where the attribute foo exists?:

<node1>
  <node2>
    <node3 foo='bar'></node3>
    <node3></node3>
    <node3 bar='foo'></node3>
    <node3 foo='foobar'></node3>
  </node2>
</node1>

score 211 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 06 '13 at 17:33

211

Short and sweet:

//*[@foo]

Of course you should use a more specific expression. But with [@attributeName] you get all nodes which have that attribute.

edited Nov 06 '13 at 17:33

ulidtko

14,740
10
56
88

answered Sep 17 '10 at 18:26

Felix Kling

795,719
175
1,089
1,143

score 40 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 06 '13 at 17:33

40

Use the following XPath expression

//*[boolean(@foo)]

edited Nov 06 '13 at 17:33

ulidtko

14,740
10
56
88

answered Jul 18 '12 at 11:21

Ru5

821
9
6

This was helpful in the case where it was part of a larger boolean expression, i.e. `//button[@id='foo' and boolean(@disabled)]` – jewbix.cube Oct 26 '22 at 20:12

score 10 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 06 '13 at 17:33

10

If you use and xpath, this maybe can help you:

count(//*[@foo])

it will return count of node/child that have attribute foo

edited Nov 06 '13 at 17:33

ulidtko

14,740
10
56
88

answered Sep 23 '10 at 09:12

fritz

121
4

XPath: How to check if an attribute exists?

3 Answers3

Linked