Xpath.valueof

Question

I'm working my way through Steve Muench's excellent book 'Building Oracle XML Applications' and I have come unstuck at Example 5.11. Test and Extract and Retrieve an Xpath Expression value.
Initially the XPATH package would not compile as it complained that the wrong type or numver of variables was present. Now for some reason it compiles okay. All the XPATH.<Functions> work with the exception of XPATH.VALUEOF which returns nothing
ORA-06503: PL/SQL: Function returned without value
ORA-06512: at "XMLBOOK.XPATH", line 122
ORA-06512: at "XMLBOOK.XPATH", line 128
ORA-06512: at line 13
I'm using a locally hosted 10g installation. Does anyone have any idea of what I need to do to fix this.
Best Regards
Chris Rose

Answer 1

In trying to get back to where I was I have tried recompiling the Xpath Package and body as listed below but it will not compile as it comes back with these errors. I have religiously followed all the installation instructions but I get stuck at this point.
Compilation errors for PACKAGE BODY SYS.XPATH
Error: PLS-00306: wrong number or types of arguments in call to 'VALUEOF'
Line: 118
Text: RETURN normalizeWS(xslprocessor.valueOf(node,xpath));
Error: PL/SQL: Statement ignored
Line: 118
Text: RETURN normalizeWS(xslprocessor.valueOf(node,xpath));
Error: PLS-00306: wrong number or types of arguments in call to 'VALUEOF'
Line: 120
Text: RETURN xslprocessor.valueOf(node,xpath);
Error: PL/SQL: Statement ignored
Line: 120
Text: RETURN xslprocessor.valueOf(node,xpath);
Error: PLS-00323: subprogram or cursor 'VALUEOF' is declared in a package specification and must be defined in the package body
Line: 17
Text: WHILE (INSTR(result,' ') > 0) LOOP
CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE xml AS
-- Set HTTP proxy server in case you reference documents
-- or DTDs outside a corporate firewall
PROCEDURE setHttpProxy(machinename VARCHAR2,
port VARCHAR2 := '80');
-- Parse and return an XML document
FUNCTION parse(xml VARCHAR2) RETURN xmldom.DOMDocument;
FUNCTION parse(xml CLOB) RETURN xmldom.DOMDocument;
FUNCTION parse(xml BFILE) RETURN xmldom.DOMDocument;
-- Parse and return an XML Document by URL
FUNCTION parseURL(url VARCHAR2) RETURN xmldom.DOMDocument;
-- Free the memory used by an XML document
PROCEDURE freeDocument(doc xmldom.DOMDocument);
END;
CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY xml AS
parse_error EXCEPTION;
PRAGMA EXCEPTION_INIT(parse_error,-20100);
http_proxy_host VARCHAR2(200);
http_proxy_port VARCHAR2(5) := '80';
PROCEDURE setHttpProxy(machinename VARCHAR2, port VARCHAR2 := '80') IS
BEGIN
http_proxy_host := machinename;
http_proxy_port := port;
END;
-- Set HTTP Proxy for Java programs in the current session.
PROCEDURE setProxy IS
BEGIN
IF http_proxy_host IS NOT NULL THEN
http_util.setProxy(http_proxy_host,http_proxy_port);
END IF;
END;
-- Parse functions parse an XML document and return a handle to
-- the in-memory DOM Document representation of the parsed XML.
-- Call freeDocument( ) when you're done using the document returned
-- by the function.
FUNCTION parse(xml VARCHAR2) RETURN xmldom.DOMDocument IS
retDoc xmldom.DOMDocument;
parser xmlparser.Parser;
BEGIN
IF xml IS NULL THEN RETURN NULL; END IF;
setProxy;
parser := xmlparser.newParser;
xmlparser.parseBuffer(parser,xml);
retDoc := xmlparser.getDocument(parser);
xmlparser.freeParser(parser);
RETURN retDoc;
EXCEPTION
WHEN parse_error THEN
xmlparser.freeParser(parser);
RETURN retdoc;
END;
FUNCTION parse(xml BFILE) RETURN xmldom.DOMDocument IS
retDoc xmldom.DOMDocument;
parser xmlparser.Parser;
b BFILE := xml;
c CLOB;
BEGIN
IF xml IS NULL THEN RETURN NULL; END IF;
setProxy;
parser := xmlparser.newParser;
dbms_lob.createtemporary(c,cache=>FALSE);
dbms_lob.fileOpen(b);
dbms_lob.loadFromFile(dest_lob => c,
src_lob => b,
amount => dbms_lob.getLength(b));
dbms_lob.fileClose(b);
xmlparser.parseCLOB(parser,c);
retDoc := xmlparser.getDocument(parser);
dbms_lob.freetemporary(c);
xmlparser.freeParser(parser);
RETURN retDoc;
EXCEPTION
WHEN parse_error THEN
dbms_lob.freetemporary(c);
xmlparser.freeParser(parser);
RETURN retdoc;
END;
FUNCTION parse(xml CLOB) RETURN xmldom.DOMDocument IS
retDoc xmldom.DOMDocument;
parser xmlparser.Parser;
BEGIN
IF xml IS NULL THEN RETURN NULL; END IF;
setProxy;
parser := xmlparser.newParser;
xmlparser.parseCLOB(parser,xml);
retDoc := xmlparser.getDocument(parser);
xmlparser.freeParser(parser);
RETURN retDoc;
EXCEPTION
WHEN parse_error THEN
xmlparser.freeParser(parser);
RETURN retdoc;
END;
FUNCTION parseURL(url VARCHAR2) RETURN xmldom.DOMDocument IS
xmldoc xmldom.DOMDocument;
BEGIN
IF url IS NULL THEN RETURN NULL; END IF;
setProxy;
RETURN xmlparser.parse(url);
END;
-- Free the Java objects associated with an in-memory DOM tree
PROCEDURE freeDocument(doc xmldom.DOMDocument) IS
BEGIN
xmldom.freeDocument(doc);
END;
END;