# Rexml Xpath parsing change

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rexml-xpath-parsing-change/118650>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [October 29, 2007, 8:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rexml-xpath-parsing-change/118650 "2007-10-29T20:27:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ermac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/838e76/32.png) [@ermac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ermac)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 8:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rexml-xpath-parsing-change/118650/1 "2007-10-29T20:27:13Z")

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Hi,

Some of my old code no longer works with the latest version of ruby  
and I’m trying to figure out why.

My code is parsing an XML file with REXML, using XPath.each(). The  
same code with the same xpath on the same xml input returns some  
results in ruby 1.8.4, but no results in ruby 1.8.6.

Can anyone explain this? I’ve had no luck searching through the  
archives of this group.

I’ve distilled out a minimal example.

## XML input:
\<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?\>

## Code:

xPath = “/containerxml/container[@name=‘0001’]/atom”  
REXML::XPath.each(xDoc.root, xPath) do |elt|  
puts elt.attributes[“name”]  
end

## Results on ruby 1.8.4:

build4:/p4/gq$ ruby -v  
ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i586-linux]

build4:/p4/gq$ ruby test.rb  
1001  
1002  
1003

## Results on ruby 1.8.6:

jim@roch:/tmp$ ruby -v  
ruby 1.8.6 (2007-06-07 patchlevel 36) [i486-linux]

jim@roch:/tmp$ ruby test.rb  
jim@roch:/tmp$

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ermac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/838e76/32.png) [@ermac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ermac)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 9:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rexml-xpath-parsing-change/118650/2 "2007-11-03T21:21:12Z")

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On Monday 29 October 2007 20:25, ermac wrote:

> archives of this group.  
>   
> end  
> 1003
> 
> ## Results on ruby 1.8.6:
> 
> jim@roch:/tmp$ ruby -v  
> ruby 1.8.6 (2007-06-07 patchlevel 36) [i486-linux]
> 
> jim@roch:/tmp$ ruby test.rb  
> jim@roch:/tmp$

Did you find a solution? I’m having the same problem.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ermac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/838e76/32.png) [@ermac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ermac)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 9:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rexml-xpath-parsing-change/118650/3 "2007-11-03T21:46:22Z")

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On Saturday 03 November 2007 21:20, Wiebe C. wrote:

> Did you find a solution? I’m having the same problem.

I found this:

[http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2007/11/02/MonkeyPatch-for-Ruby-1-8-6](http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2007/11/02/MonkeyPatch-for-Ruby-1-8-6)

A quote from the article:

“Unfortunately, there is a bug in Ruby 1.8.6 that affects documents with  
a  
default namespace (even a vestigial one, like those sported by WordPress  
weblogs) which prevents non-namespace qualified attribute names from  
working  
in XPath expressions.”