how to select attribute value of a node in XQuery?

Question

In below XML:

<company>
    <customers>
    <customer cno="2222">
            <cname>Charles</cname>
            <street>123 Main St.</street>
            <city>Wichita</city>
            <zip>67226</zip>
            <phone>316-636-5555</phone>
        </customer>
        <customer cno="1000">
            <cname>Bismita</cname>
            <street>Ashford Dunwoody</street>
            <city>Wichita</city>
            <zip>67226-1555</zip>
            <phone>000-000-0000</phone>
        </customer>     
    </customers>
</company>

I need to get the customer's no which is an attribute. In XPath I know it is /company/customers/customer/@cno, in XQuery I've tried below expression but didn't work for me:

for $c in /company/customers/customer
return $c/@cno

XQuery uses plain XPath; your attempt works for me. What does `return $c` give you? — Tomalak, Apr 17 '13 at 02:39
I'm using EditX software for this, but it show error "Cannot create an attribute node whose parent is document node." Can you please let me know in which tool you try this, so I can switch to that tool. May be it is tool specific issue. — Itz.Irshad, Apr 17 '13 at 02:49
possible duplicate of [Using XQuery/XPath to get the attribute value of an element's parent node](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2166014/using-xquery-xpath-to-get-the-attribute-value-of-an-elements-parent-node) — Tomalak, Apr 17 '13 at 07:01
Sometimes searching for the exact error message does wonders. It turned up this question as the first hit for me, I'm sure it would have done the same for you. — Tomalak, Apr 17 '13 at 07:03
You can also use the shorter `/company/customers/customer/@cno/data()` which doesn't require an explicit loop. — Jens Erat, Apr 17 '13 at 07:35

score 57 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 17 '13 at 17:16

57

You should use data to pick attribute value:-

for $c in /company/customers/customer
return data($c/@cno)

edited Apr 17 '13 at 17:16

Daniel Haley

51,389
6
69
95

answered Apr 17 '13 at 05:11

Navin Rawat

3,208
1
19
31

score 16 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 04 '15 at 13:20

16

You can also use string to get attribute value:

for $c in /company/customers/customer
    return $c/@cno/string()

edited Mar 04 '15 at 13:20

fedorqui

275,237
103
548
598

answered Mar 04 '15 at 13:17

Nikunj Vekariya

833
5
19

I was able to get this to work where wrapping it in data() did not. I think its because my parser is strictly older xpath/xquery. – Jeff Meden Jan 06 '16 at 21:19

how to select attribute value of a node in XQuery?

2 Answers2