Searching for xpath expression with colon in attribute name throws exception (node.js elementtree module)

Question

Using the elementtree package in nodejs, I'm trying to verify the existence of a certain xml attribute in an xml file (specifically an android manifest file).

var manifestTxt = fs.readFileSync('AndroidManifest.xml', 'utf-8'),
    manifestDoc = new et.ElementTree(et.XML(manifestTxt)),
    expected = 'application/activity[@android:name="com.whatever.app"]';

test.ok(manifestDoc.find(expected));

I'm getting the following exception:

node_modules/elementtree/lib/elementpath.js:210
      throw new SyntaxError(token, 'Invalid attribute predicate');
        ^
Error: Invalid attribute predicate

It doesn't seem to like the colon in the attribute name, but without it the search doesn't match. I think I'm handling the namespace wrong -- but can't find the proper way.

Edit Here's the sample xml I'm searching:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<manifest ... xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <application android:debuggable="true" android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name">&#xA; 
        <activity android:label="@string/app_name" android:name="com.whatever.app">&#xA;                
            <intent-filter>&#xA;</intent-filter>
        </activity> 
    </application>
    <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="5" />
</manifest>

Answer 1

In case you don't have the information how to register the namespace and use the associated prefix for it, use:

application/activity
   [@*[local-name()=name' 
     and 
      namespace-uri() = 'http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android'
      ] 
   = 
    'com.whatever.app'
   ]

Simpler expressions that aren't safe in the general case, but may select the wanted node(s) in this specific case:

application/activity[@*[local-name()='name'] = 'com.whatever.app']

or this expression:

application/activity[@*[name()='android:name'] = 'com.whatever.app']