Re: Help with ExtractValue

[Jonathan Stephens]

Well, you *can* select <WORK/> and <HOME/> but they're empty. ExtractValue() gets the *content* of the tag, and empty tags have no content.

Let's look at your example again:

<vCard>
<ADR><WORK/><REGION>Dorset</REGION></ADR>
<ADR><HOME/><REGION>London</REGION></ADR>
</vCard>

Here's a tree representation:

        vCard
          |
   ---------------
   |             |
  ADR           ADR
   |             |
 -------      -------
 |     |      |     |
WORK REGION  HOME REGION

WORK and REGION are both children of the first ADR element; WORK and REGION are siblings. REGION is not a child of WORK.

Similarly, HOME and REGION are both children of the second ADR element. REGION is not a child of HOME.

Actually, a better XML representation of this information might be:


<vCard>
<ADR><TYPE>work</TYPE><REGION>Dorset</REGION></ADR>
<ADR><TYPE>home</TYPE><REGION>London</REGION></ADR>
</vCard>

or this:


<vCard>
<ADR type="work"><REGION>Dorset</REGION></ADR>
<ADR type="home"><REGION>London</REGION></ADR>
</vCard>


Either of these gives the ADR element consistent structure throughout the XML document, making it heaps easier to work with. :)

Jon Stephens
MySQL Documentation Team @ Oracle

MySQL Dev Zone
MySQL Server Documentation
Oracle