How do I perform a case insensitive search for a node in PHP xpath?

Question

I don't want a search for the string value to be case insensitive. I want to do a search for the node without regard for case sensitivity. If the XML looks like this:

<items>
   <ITEM>My text!</ITEM>
</items>

I need something like this to work:

$someXmlDoc->xpath("/items/item/text()");

Currently, only this works:

$someXmlDoc->xpath("/items/ITEM/text()");

Duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/625986/how-can-i-use-xpath-to-perform-a-case-insensitive-search-and-support-non-english The answer is already there :) — Björn, Jun 05 '09 at 09:38
Hi Bjorn -- I did see that, but it looked as if that provided an answer for a case insensitive on a string value, not a node, which is what I couldn't figure out. — , Jun 05 '09 at 11:44

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 30 '18 at 15:07

2

There is no case conversion in xpath 1.0 as supported by php (see http://jp.php.net/manual/en/class.domxpath.php)

you could use the translate function, shown below in a very limited sense. note: not recommended as it won't work for non-english characters

/items/*[translate(node(),'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ','abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz') = 'item']/text()

Upd:If node() will not work, try name()

you could also do a union as below

/items/ITEM/text() | /items/item/text()

edited Nov 30 '18 at 15:07

Dmitriy Grishin - dogrishin

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answered Jun 05 '09 at 01:22

Jonathan Fingland

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The union works, but the translate does not. I am accepting for that answer. Thanks :) – Jun 05 '09 at 11:49

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 26 '16 at 05:59

0

Jonathan Fingland first variant did not work for me either, but I found solution finally.

It should be

/items/*[translate(name(),'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ','abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz') = 'item']/text()

answered Feb 26 '16 at 05:59

Dmitriy Grishin - dogrishin

352
4
13

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 05 '09 at 06:17

This is weird. XML tags are case-sensitive (http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_syntax.asp), so <item> and <ITEM> are two different tags. Thus. "/items/item/text()" and /items/ITEM/text() are two different paths.

<items>
   <ITEM>My text!</ITEM>
   <item>Your text!</item>
</items>

"My text" and "Your text" have different xpaths

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

Taking your previous questions on the same subject into account another question submerges: "Does it have to be xml?" How about json?
To encode the data as json on the client you can use jquery-json, which takes only 2kb in the minimized version

var jsondata = {
  sender: "CATS",
  subject: "All Your Base",
  items: []
};
for(var i=0; i<8; i++) jsondata.items.push(i);

$.ajax({
  url: "http://localhost/test.php",
  type: "post",
  dataType: "json",
  data: $.toJSON(jsondata),
  contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",

Then your server-side php script can decode the data with json_decode(), and you will get a native php array/hash according to the json-representation of the javascript object/hash.
For sending data back to the client you can use json_encode(). You get a json representation of your php array and since dataType: "json" was set, jquery will return a native javascript object holding these values/properties.

How do I perform a case insensitive search for a node in PHP xpath?

4 Answers4