Invalid XPath ?

Question

I have a process that gets a date (format YYYY-MM-DD; forced by Console), which has to be delivered to a Webservice, that requests dates in format 'dd MMM yyyy' (24 aug 2005).
I've tried the following options (in an Assign):
<copy>
  <from variable="inputVariable" part="payload" query="ora:formatDate('/client:bpAanvraagProcessRequest/client:DatumBemonstering', 'dd MMM yyyy')"/>
  <to variable="addAanvraag_addaanvraag_InputVariable" part="pDbg"/>
</copy>And:
<copy>
  <from variable="inputVariable" part="payload" query="xp20:format-dateTime(/client:bpAanvraagProcessRequest/client:DatumBemonstering,'[dd] [MMM] [YYYY]')"/>
   <to variable="addAanvraag_addaanvraag_InputVariable" part="pDbg"/>
</copy>Both fail with the following message:
[Error ORABPEL-10076]: invalid xpath query string 
[Description]: in line 68 of "L:\workspaces\BPEL\bpAanvraag\bpAanvraag.bpel", According to BPEL4WS spec 1.1, section 14.3,
the xpath query "ora:formatDate('/client:bpAanvraagProcessRequest/client:DatumBemonstering', 'dd MMM yyyy')" is invalid,
query should be an absolute location path and it must start from the root element prefixed with "/".. 
[Potential fix]: Please make sure that your xpath query starts with "/" which is the root..Anyone has any ideas how to fix this?

Answer 1

Okey, found it:
The format-string is an XSLT 2.0 picture string, see syntax explained at http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt20/#date-picture-string
By the way:
a) w3.org publishes the function xslt:format-date(), and format it by picture. This is not offered by Oracle BPEL it seems (at least not through the Expression builder, ver 10.1.2.0.0 ).
Oracle-BPEL offers:
b) ora:formatDate(), and format it by java.text.SimpleDateFormat.
c) xp20:format-dateTime(), and format it by picture.
So I took it away by code like:
<copy>
<from expression="xp20:current-dateTime()"/>
<to variable="myDateTime"/>
</copy>
<copy>
<from expression="'P21D'"/>
<my-xml-comment>The Xpath syntax (like P21D) is for specifying an xdt:dayTimeDuration of 21 days ahead, see http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions/#lexical-dayTimeDuration</my-xml-comment>
<to variable="myDuration"/>
</copy>
<copy>
<from expression="xp20:add-dayTimeDuration-to-dateTime( bpws:getVariableData('myDateTime'), bpws:getVariableData('myDuration') )"/>
<to variable="myResultTime"/>
</copy>
<copy>
<from expression="xp20:format-dateTime( bpws:getVariableData('myResultTime'), '[Y0001][M01][D01]' )"/>
<to variable="myResultTimeNOARK"/>
</copy>