Namespace in xml element

Question

I have an xml file tagged with namespaces:
for example, ce:section, ce:para
i just trying to collect the 'ce:floats' xml nodes by using the following code:
//Defining the Namespace in the array of arrays of 2 strings
Dim NmSpArr(,) As String = {{"sb", "http://www.elsevier.com/xml/common/struct-bib/dtd"}, {"cl", "http://xml.cengage-learning.com/cendoc-core"}, {"ce", "http://www.elsevier.com/xml/common/dtd"}, {"aid", "http://ns.adobe.com/AdobeInDesign/4.0/"}, {"aid5", "http://ns.adobe.com/AdobeInDesign/5.0/"}, {"xmlns:xsi", "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"}, {"xmlns:mml", "http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"}, {"xmlns:xlink", "http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"}}
//Trying to collect the 'ce:floats'
Dim obj As InDesign.Objects = IndDoc.XMLElements(1).EvaluateXPathExpression("//ce:floats", NmSpArr)
ID CS4
Vb.net
Above code always returning 0 as count. It seems there is problem with the xml namespaces definition.
Any help would be greately appreciated.
Regards,
Suresh

Answer 1

Suresh:
Is there anyone know any alternative methods to collect the xml nodes with namespaces?
Again, I wrote:
But it shouldn't be too much work to just traverse the tree.
Here's an example in JavaScript. It should be easy to translate it into VB. Of course all you need is the traverse() function -- the rest is just examples and test cases:
(function() {
  var
    x = app.activeDocument.xmlElements[0],
    star, all, floats, cefloats, anyfloats;
    function traverse(t, p) {
        var r = [], i;
        if (p(t)) {
            r = r.concat(t);
        for (i=0; i<t.xmlElements.length; i++) {
            r = r.concat (traverse(t.xmlElements[i], p));
        return r;
    function dumplist(l) {
        var i,
            rv = [];
        rv.push("has "+l.length+" elements:");
        for (i=0; i<l.length; i++) {
            rv.push("  "+i+"\t"+l[i].toSpecifier()+
                "\t"+l[i].markupTag.name);
        return rv.join("\n");
  star = x.evaluateXPathExpression("*");
  all = traverse(x,
      function() { return true; }
  floats = traverse(x,
       function(n) { return n.markupTag.name==="float"; }
  cefloats = traverse(x,
      function(n) { return n.markupTag.name==="ce:float"; }
  anyfloats = traverse(x,
      function(n) { return n.markupTag.name.match(/float$/); }
  $.writeln("star: "+dumplist(star));
  $.writeln("all "+dumplist(all));
  $.writeln("floats "+dumplist(floats));
  $.writeln("cefloats "+dumplist(cefloats));
  $.writeln("anyfloats "+dumplist(anyfloats));
So, if you run this on a document with an XML schema like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<Root>
  <ce:float>A</ce:float>
  <ce:float>B</ce:float>
  <float>AC</float>
  <float>Ad</float>
  <ce:float>Af</ce:float>
  <div>
    <ce:float>Ai</ce:float>
    <float>Ag</float>
  </div>
</Root>
It gives you this output:
star: has 3 elements:
  0     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[@id=2]/XML-element[@id=5]     float
  1     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[@id=2]/XML-element[@id=6]     float
  2     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[@id=2]/XML-element[@id=11]     div
all has 9 elements:
  0     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]     Root
  1     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[0]     ce:float
  2     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[1]     ce:float
  3     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[2]     float
  4     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[3]     float
  5     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[4]     ce:float
  6     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[5]     div
  7     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[5]/XML-element[0]     ce:float
  8     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[5]/XML-element[1]     float
floats has 3 elements:
  0     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[2]     float
  1     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[3]     float
  2     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[5]/XML-element[1]     float
cefloats has 4 elements:
  0     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[0]     ce:float
  1     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[1]     ce:float
  2     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[4]     ce:float
  3     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[5]/XML-element[0]     ce:float
anyfloats has 7 elements:
  0     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[0]     ce:float
  1     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[1]     ce:float
  2     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[2]     float
  3     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[3]     float
  4     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[4]     ce:float
  5     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[5]/XML-element[0]     ce:float
  6     /document[@id=1]/XML-element[0]/XML-element[5]/XML-element[1]     float