How to perform case insensitive search in XPath?

Question

I am trying to implement case insensitive search using XPath. I have already referred how to perform a case-insensitive attribute selector in xquery so please check before marking as duplicate. I am using Lcase to convert my variable (L_search) to lowercase and lower-case functions.

My original case sensitive XPath expression is:

XPath       =  "//*[contains(., '"& search &"')]/ancestor-or-self::*/*[local-name()='home' and @locale='en']"

I have tried many combinations like :

XPath       =  "//*lower-case([contains(., '"& L_search &"')])/ancestor-or-self::*/*[local-name()='home' and @locale='en']"

XPath       =  "//*[contains(lower-case(.), '"& L_search &"')])/ancestor-or-self::*/*[local-name()='home' and @locale='en']"

But none of them is yielding a result.

This is the code I'm running:

Sub ProcessFolder(FolderPath)
    On Error Resume Next
    Set fldr = fso.GetFolder(FolderPath)

    Set Fls = fldr.files
    For Each thing in Fls
            sFSpec = FSO.GetAbsolutePathName(thing)
            objMSXML.async = True
            objMSXML.load sFSpec
             If 0 = objMSXML.parseError Then
                Dim sXPath   : sXPath       =  "//*[contains(., '"& search &"')]/ancestor-or-self::*/*[local-name()='name' and @locale='en']"

                Dim querySubject : Set querySubject = objMSXML.selectSingleNode(sXPath)
                    Set p = document.createElement("p")
                        p.innerText = thing.Path
                        document.body.appendChild p
                    If querySubject Is Nothing Then
                        MsgBox sXPath, "failed"

Answer 1

VBScript supports only XPath 1.0 and not XQuery, so first edit your question title.

In XPath 1.0 the translate() function is used for case insensitivity.

//*[contains(translate(., 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz') , search)]/ancestor-or-self::*/*[local-name()='home' and @locale='en']

Where search = Lcase(V_SAEARCH)

It will work perfect. No need to use quotes around your variable.

another way to write this is:-

//*[contains(translate(., 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz') , translate('" & search & "', 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'))]/ancestor-or-self::*/*[local-name()='home' and @locale='en']

Here search variable is being translated in XPath.

Answer 2

XPath 2.0

If you use case-insensitive matches(),

"//*[matches(., '"& search &"', 'i')]/ancestor-or-self::*/*[local-name()='home' and @locale='en']"

you won't need to worry about the case of your search variable.

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See also case insensitive xpath contains() possible? for other XPath 1.0 and 2.0 solutions.