Parse XML using namespace prefixes in syntax for root elements - Java

Your XML input actually has two namepsaces.

Default namespace

The first is the default one, declared as such :

<semseg:Envelope ... xmlns="http://another-random-URL" ...

Being the default one, any XML element that has no namespace on it belongs to this default namespace.

semseg namespace

Defined as such :

<semseg:Envelope xmlns:semseg="http://a-random-URL" ...

Meaning every XML element prefixed with semseg belongs to this namespace.

Translating your requirements

So you're aiming at an XPath expression that will target

• any Triangle element (no prefix, so that actually translates to any Triangle element from the http://another-random-URL namespace).
• That is a direct child of a root semseg:Enveloppe element (that actually translates to a root element of the local name Enveloppe belonging to the "http://a-random-URL" namespace).

Programming this in XPath.

We create a NamespaceContext that describes what namespaces we are working with : I define prefixes that I wish to work with, and map them to the namespaces. These prefixes will be used by the XPath engine. I map :

• The main prefix to the http://a-random-URL namespace
• The secondary prefix to the http://another-random-URL namespace

Using this mapping that I defined, I can translate your requirement to this XPath :

/main:Envelope/secondary:Triangle

And this works :

XPathFactory xPathFactory = XPathFactory.newInstance();
XPath xPath = xPathFactory.newXPath();
xPath.setNamespaceContext(new NamespaceContext() {
    @Override
    public String getNamespaceURI(String prefix) {
        if ("main".equals(prefix)) {
            return "http://a-random-URL";
        }
        if ("secondary".equals(prefix)) {
            return "http://another-random-URL";
        }
        return null;
    }
    @Override
    public String getPrefix(String namespaceURI) {
        // This should be implemented but I'm lazy and this sample works without it
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public Iterator getPrefixes(String namespaceURI) {
        // This should be implemented but I'm lazy and this sample works without it
        return null;
    }
});
XPathExpression xpr = xPath.compile("/main:Envelope/secondary:Triangle");
NodeList nodes = (NodeList)xpr.evaluate(doc, XPathConstants.NODESET);
System.out.println(nodes.getLength());

Outputs :

1

Here I have implemented a really dumb namespace context, but if you hava Spring framework, CXF, guava (I think), or other frameworks at reach, you often have something like SimpleNamespaceContext or MapBasedNamespaceContext that are probably better options.