fetching node values in groups using XPath

Question

I have an XML of format

...
<parent>
   <child name='a' />
</parent>
<parent>
   <child name='b' />
   <child name='c' />
   <child name='d' />
</parent>
...

Now, i'm using XPath expression //parent/child[@name] to fetch the child node names. But I'm getting everything in a flat list, in this instance its a list of 4 nodes.

Is there a way (xpath expression) to fetch the nodes grouped by the parent as in [[a],[b,c,d]]

Answer 1

Sounds like you need two loops, one on //parent, and then a sub query for child[@anme]. That should allow you to work with the child names in their groups. XPath will otherwise just return all matching nodes, irrespective of ancestry.