# REXML XPath question

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rexml-xpath-question/107750>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 25, 2007, 11:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rexml-xpath-question/107750 "2007-06-25T23:06:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![del](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@del](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/del)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2007, 11:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rexml-xpath-question/107750/1 "2007-06-25T23:06:49Z")

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Can anyone explain these result to me (see bottom)?

require ‘rexml//document’  
d = REXML::Document.new %{

 test 

3

4

5

6

}

REXML::XPath.match d, “/html/body/p[@id=‘foo’]”  
#-\> []

REXML::XPath.match d, “/html/body/p[@id]”  
#-\> []

REXML::XPath.match d, “/html/body/p[@\*]”  
#-\> [

… \</\>,

… \</\>]

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![del](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@del](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/del)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2007, 11:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rexml-xpath-question/107750/2 "2007-06-25T23:32:44Z")

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OK I just removed xmlns=“[XHTML namespace](http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml)” from the   
tag (the default namespace) and now it works.

Is this a bug?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![del](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@del](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/del)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 12:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rexml-xpath-question/107750/3 "2007-06-26T00:18:11Z")

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Wow, 2 replies from myself…

I just found out that XPath 1.0 does not work correctly with a default  
namespace. So this is “correct” behavior.