Code Inspections in XPath

Hardcoded namespace prefix

Reports comparison of the name() function with a string that contains a colon (:). Such usages usually indicate a hardcoded namespace prefix in the comparison. As a result, the code will break when run against XML that uses another prefix for the same namespace.

Example:

<xsl:if test="name() = 'xlink:href'">...<xsl:if>

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Warning

Implicit type conversion

Reports an implicit conversion among the predefined XPath-types STRING, NUMBER, BOOLEAN, and NODESET. Helps to write XSLT scripts that are more expressive about types and prevents subtle bugs:

Example:

<xsl:if test="foo" /> is not the same as <xsl:if test="string(foo)" />

The first test checks whether the element "foo" exists (count(foo) > 0); the latter one however is only true if the element actually contains any text (string-length(foo) > 0). Suggests making the type conversion more explicit.

Use the controls below to customize the inspection.

• Enable or disable implicit conversions between certain types

• Always report explicit conversions that do not result in the actually expected type, for example, <xsl:if test="number(foo)" />

• Ignore conversion from NODESET to BOOLEAN by using the string() function as a shortcut for writing string-length() > 0.

Warning

Redundant type conversion

Reports a type conversion with a string(), number(), or boolean() function where the type of the argument is the same as the function's return type or if the expected expression type is any. Suggests removing the unnecessary conversion.

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Warning

Unknown element or attribute name

Reports the name of an element or an attribute that is used in an XPath-expression but is missing in the associated XML file and is not defined in the referenced schema. This prevents problems caused by typos in XPath-expressions that otherwise occur when running the script and may even happen not to be recognized immediately.

Example:

<xsl:template match="h:txtarea" />

If the h is bound to the XHTML namespace, the inspection will report this part of the match expression as an unknown element name because the correct name of the element is "textarea".

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Warning

XPath predicate with index 0

Reports accidental usage of zero in a predicate index or in a comparison with the function position(). Such usage is almost always a bug because in XPath, the index starts at one, not at zero.

Example:

//someelement[position() = 0] or //something[0]

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Warning