Home >Online Product Documentation >Table of Contents >Determining the Position Number of a Node
The position() function returns an integer that indicates the position of the node within the parent. Positions start with 1; a node with a position of 1 is always the first node in the collection.
position()
1
For example, the following query returns the first three degree elements in the document:
degree
(//degree)[position() < 4]
The next query finds the first two book children in the current context:
book[position() <= 2]
The XPath processor executes the position() function with respect to the parent node. Consider the following data:
<x> <y/> <y/> </x> <x> <y/> <y/> </x>
<y/> <y/>
The following expression returns the first y element contained in each x element:
y
x
x/y[position() = 1]
For more information, see also Finding an Element with a Particular ID.
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