How to use within Node and Browser

[loretoparisi]

I have downloaded the node source and required the module:

XPath=require('./util/wgxpath');
XPath.install();

it gives no errors.
But now how to evaluate an available DOM and valid structure (supposed to have one within node)?

On a browser I have copied the install file in the Chrome console and the I did

wgxpath.install()

But I cannot see there the .test object

wgxpath.test
undefined

[Dominator008]

@loretoparisi Have you tried using document.evaluate? wgxpath.test is for testing the library and is not intended to be available. See https://github.com/google/wicked-good-xpath#instructions.

[loretoparisi]

@Dominator008 ok for document evaluate in the browser, and what happens when in node?

[Dominator008]

You will need something like "jsdom" for that. Stealing the example from the third-party "node-wgxpath" NPM package: https://github.com/jacobmarble/node-wgxpath#example. Change require('wgxpath') to require('wicked-good-xpath') to use this package instead of that one.

[loretoparisi]

@Dominator008 amazing. I have html strings already (no need to fetch), and I'm loading into a DOM object with cheerio like:

  var $ = cheerio.load(html);
  var els = $('.content ul li')

so it should work like

var document = cheerio.load(html);
wgxpath.install(document);
var expression = document.createExpression(expressionString);
var result = expression.evaluate(window.document,
wgxpath.XPathResultType.STRING_TYPE);
console.log('The Word of the Day is "' + result.stringValue + '."');

Maybe you could provide more examples in the Readme like here: http://coderepos.org/share/wiki/JavaScript-XPath

Another question that repo https://github.com/jacobmarble/node-wgxpath#example is the latest version, or this one?

[Dominator008]

@loretoparisi Care to send a PR? :)

[loretoparisi]

@Dominator008 sure will do.

[Dominator008]

@loretoparisi https://github.com/jacobmarble/node-wgxpath#example hasn't been updated with 1.3.0. I have a pull request out as jacobmarble/node-wgxpath#4 but it hasn't been merged yet.

[loretoparisi]

@Dominator008 thanks!
Since the pull request is already open, you can also update the example with the right expression:

var url = 'http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day';
var expressionString = '//*[@class="word-and-pronunciation"]/h1';
jsdom.env({
    url: url,
    done: function(errors, window) {
        wgxpath.install(window);
        var expression = window.document.createExpression(expressionString);
        var result = expression.evaluate(window.document,
            wgxpath.XPathResultType.STRING_TYPE);
        if (result.stringValue.length <= 0)
        console.log('Failed to get the word of the day.');
        else
        console.log('The Word of the Day is "' + result.stringValue + '."');

    }
});