Finding an XML node by namespace with jQuery

Question

We've got an XML file where some nodes are namespaced. Basically the file looks like this:

<foo>
    <bar xmlns:x="http://www.example.com/">
        <x:bla foo="bar" />
    </bar>
</foo>

What we want to achieve is that we want to select the x:bla node, but unfortunately we don't know in advance the node's name, just its namespace. Hence all we know is basically that it's a x:* node.

Now, the question is: How do we select this node by using jQuery's find method once we have parsed the XML file by using $.parseXML?

Using $(xml).find("x\\:bla, bla") works, but only if I know that the node is called bla.

Answer 1

You can use the attribute-contains jQuery-selector (see here)

xml.find("[nodeName*='x:']")

Answer 2

.parseXML() is giving me XML parse error, it seems it can't handle the <x:bla.. syntax.

So I just used jQuery with a custom selector to find elements by namespace:

$.expr[':'].findNS = function(obj, idx, meta, stack) {
    if (obj.nodeName.indexOf(meta[3].toUpperCase()+':') === 0) {
        return true;
    }
    return false;
};

var xml="<foo><bar><x:bla atr='attvalue' /></bar></foo>";

alert( $(xml).find(':findNS(x)').attr('atr') ); // Alerts 'attvalue'

See working demo

Answer 3

jQuery XML parsing with namespaces shows how to search for a literal namespace prefix. I would consider this an "evil" workaround, because it's no real XML processing. But it looks like jQuery does not support any real namespace handling. So you probably have to go for that solution.