Using XPATH in RTF Templates

Example: [http://www.adivaconsulting.com/adiva-blog/item/38-working-with-xpath-in-rtf-template.html]

Here is the example of an institute which has one department and a few students in it.

<INSTITUTE>

<DEPARTMENT>

     <DEPARTMENT_NAME>COMPUTER SCIENCE ENGINEERING</DEPARTMENT_NAME>

          <SECTION>

                <STUDENT>

                     <ROLL_NO>1201</ROLL_NO>

                      <MARKS>

                              <SUBJECT1>45</SUBJECT1>

                              <SUBJECT2>55</SUBJECT2>

                              <SUBJECT3>65</SUBJECT3>

                      </MARKS>

                </STUDENT>

                 <STUDENT>

                     <ROLL_NO>1205</ROLL_NO>

                      <MARKS>

                              <SUBJECT1>56</SUBJECT1>

                              <SUBJECT2>48</SUBJECT2>

                              <SUBJECT3>58</SUBJECT3>

                      </MARKS>

                </STUDENT>

                <STUDENT>

                     <ROLL_NO>1257</ROLL_NO>

                      <MARKS>

                              <SUBJECT1>51</SUBJECT1>

                              <SUBJECT2>49</SUBJECT2>

                              <SUBJECT3>53</SUBJECT3>

                      </MARKS>

                </STUDENT>

          </SECTION>

     </DEPARTMENT>

</INSTITUTE>

Now let’s display all the student details using a table with department name, roll number and marks.

Output:

Why is the department name missing?

When we say <?for-each:STUDENT?> the control is at <STUDENT> , (as you can see in the below diagram) but department name is not the child of student so we have to move the cursor to appropriate tag using xpath.

Output:

Here we used <?../../DEPARTMENT_NAME?> instead of <?DEPARTMENT_NAME?> so that the control jumps to two levels up in hierarchy and displays the DEPARTMENT NAME.

Now, let’s calculate totals marks secured by each student. To do so, add a column for Total and use <?sum(./MARKS/*)?> syntax to calculate TOTAL.

<?sum(./MARKS/*)?> syntax implies that we are using sum function and calculating all the children in marks

Output: