Xalan XPathAPI selectNodeIterator help

Question

so i got xml something like this
<abc>
 <bcd>
   <cde/>
   <cde/>
 </bcd>
 <bcd>
   <cde/>
   <cde/>
 </bcd>
</abc>
so i parse the doc tree using xerces which seems fine, and i pass the
root element to XPathAPI with xpath /abc/bcd and it gives me back a list
of the 2 <bcd> nodes which is great. then i try to process each their
childs so i pass each of the <bcd> node to XPathAPI with xpath of
/bcd/cde and i get nothing. so fine, i give it //cde with each one of
the <bcd> node as the other argument but now i get all 4 of the <cde>
nodes back instead of the 2 child <cde>. what am i doing wrong?
i am using jdk 1.3.1_01, and xalan 2.5.0. thanks.

Answer 1

...then i try to
process each their
childs so i pass each of the <bcd> node to XPathAPI
with xpath of
/bcd/cde and i get nothing.That's right, none of the bcd elements have children that are bcd elements with cde children. If you want the cde children of a bcd node then "/cde" would work better. (Or "cde", perhaps.)
so fine, i give it //cde
with each one of
the <bcd> node as the other argument but now i get all
4 of the <cde>
nodes back instead of the 2 child <cde>.That's right, //cde means "start at the root and find all cde elements at any depth".