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RFC 5261, "An Extensible Markup Language (XML) Patch Operations Framework Utilizing XML Path Language (XPath) Selectors", September 2008

Source of RFC: simple (rai)

Errata ID: 3477
Status: Held for Document Update
Type: Technical
Publication Format(s) : TEXT

Reported By: Erik Wilde
Date Reported: 2013-02-05
Held for Document Update by: Gonzalo Camarillo

Section 4.2.2 says:

In XPath 2.0, a "bar" selector
not only matches an unqualified <bar> element, but also matches a
qualified <bar> element that is in scope of a default namespace
declaration.  In contrast, in this specification, a selector without
a prefix only matches one element, and it may match an element with
or without a prefix but only if the namespace it's qualified with (or
none) is an exact match.

It should say:

In XPath 2.0, a "bar" selector matches elements that have the URI of 
the "default element/type namespace", which is part of an XPath's 
static context. By setting this URI to the default namespace of the 
diff document (or leave it empty, if there is none), XPath 2.0's 
behavior matches the requirements of the previous section.

Notes:

The original text is not easy to understand, but seems to assume that an unprefixed name in XPath 2.0 matches both unprefixed names, and prefixed ones that have the same namespace than the default namespace of the XPath static context. This is not the case: Matching depends on how the "default element/type namespace" of the XPath static context is defined, and then matches either namespace-less elements, or those in the "default element/type namespace", but never both. This context, however, is defined by the XPath itself, not by the document. Thus, it can be set externally and could be set to the diff document's default namespace (if there is one). In that case, XPath 2.0 can be used to evaluate XML Patch selectors.

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