Re: xpath not a good replacement for xpath_string

On Tuesday, July 28, 2009, <pgsql(at)mohawksoft(dot)com> wrote:
>> Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> wrote:
>>
>>> in fact the desired functionality is present [...] You just need to
>>> use the text() function to get the contents of the node, and an
>>> array subscript to pull it out of the result array.
>>
>> I just took a quick look, and that didn't jump out at me from the
>> documentation.  Perhaps there should be an example or two of how to
>> get the equivalent functionality through the newer standard API, for
>> those looking to migrate?
>>
>> Would it make sense to supply convenience SQL functions which map
>> some of the old API to the new?
>
> The thing that perplexed me was that it was not obvious from the docs how,
> exactly, to get the functionality that was simple and straight forward in
> XML2.
>
> Another thing that is troubling is that more exotic types do not seem to
> be supported at all. For instance, in my example I used uuid, and if one
> substitutes "uuid()" for "text()" that doesn't work.
>

text() is an XPath function used to extract the text content of a
node, in this case the uuid element.

> The API is less intuitive than the previous incarnation and is, indeed,
> more difficult to use.

It may be easier to use for those not familiar with more advanced
XPath, but it also has non-standard default actions. That being said,
I'd love to see wrapper functions that provide the older api but
leverage the core code.

--miker

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Mike Rylander
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