Summary

In this chapter, you got an overview of the major XPath features, and read about the lessons that programmers who use XPath in real-life situations have learned over the years. You were also introduced to tools that you can use when you're writing XPath expressions.

There is much more to XPath than what can be covered in just one chapter. If you want to learn more, check out Michael Kay's book XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference. And rest assured, this isn't being recommended just because it is published by the same editor as Professional XML: Michael is editor of both the XPath 2.0 and the XSLT 2.0 specification, and he has implemented both in his Saxon product, which is a superior XPath 2.0 and XSLT 2.0 implementation. His book will make also make you an XPath expert.