• Chapter 1: Getting Started with Stylus Studio®
• Chapter 2: Editing and Querying XML
• Chapter 3: Converting Non-XML Files to XML
• Chapter 4: Working with XSLT
• Chapter 5: Creating XSLT Using the XSLT Mapper
• Chapter 6: Debugging Stylesheets
• Chapter 7: Defining XML Schemas
• Chapter 8: Defining Document Type Definitions
• Chapter 9: Writing XPath Expressions
  • About the XPath Processor
  • Using the XPath Query Editor
  • Sample Data for Examples and Practice
  • Getting Started with Queries
  • Specifying the Nodes to Evaluate
    • Understanding XPath Processor Terms
    • Starting at the Context Node
    • About Root Nodes and Document Elements
    • Starting at the Root Node
    • Descending Along Branches
    • Explicitly Specifying the Current Context
    • Specifying Children or Descendants of Parent Nodes
    • Examples of XPath Expression Results
    • Syntax for Specifying an Axis in a Query
    • Supported Axes
    • Axes That Represent the Whole XML Document
  • Handling Strings and Text
  • Specifying Boolean Expressions and Functions
  • Specifying Number Operations and Functions
  • Comparing Values
  • Finding a Particular Node
  • Obtaining a Union
  • Obtaining Information About a Node or a Node Set
  • Using XPath Expressions in Stylesheets
  • Accessing Other Documents During Query Execution
  • XPath Quick Reference
• Chapter 10: Working with XQuery in Stylus Studio
• Chapter 11: Composing Web Service Calls
• Chapter 12: Accessing Relational Data as XML
• Chapter 13: Building XML Pipelines
• Chapter 14: Publishing XML Data
• Chapter 15: Integrating with Third-Party File Systems
• Chapter 16: Extending Stylus Studio
• Chapter 17: The Stylus Studio Java API
• Chapter 18: Stylus Studio GUI Reference

Home > Online Product Documentation > Table of Contents > Explicitly Specifying the Current Context

Explicitly Specifying the Current Context

If you want to explicitly specify the current context node, place a dot and a forward slash ( ./) in front of the query. This construct typically appears in queries that contain filters . The following two queries are equivalent:

./author 
               
author
               

            

Remember, if you specify the name of an element as a complete query (for example, foo), you obtain only the foo elements that are children of the current context node. You do not necessarily obtain all foo elements in the document.

You can also specify the dot notation ( .) to indicate that you want the XPath processor to manipulate the current context. For example:

//title [. = "History of Trenton"]
               

            

In this example, the XPath processor finds all title elements. The dot indicates the context node. This causes the XPath processor to check each title in turn to determine whether its string value is History of Trenton.