Value (XmlDoc/XmlNode property)

String-value of selected node

Value is a member of the XmlDoc and XmlNode classes.

This settable property obtains a substring of the XPath “string-value” of a node, including its Text descendants. The string-value depends on the node type, as shown in “Usage Notes,” below.

Syntax

  %curr = nr:Value([XPath])

  nr:Value([XPath]) = newvalue

Syntax Terms

%curr

A Unicode string that is the string-value of the context node. Prior to Sirius Mods version 7.6, this is an EBCDIC string.

nr

An XmlDoc or XmlNode, used as the context node for the XPath expression. If an XmlDoc, the Root node is the context node.

XPath

An XPath expression that results in a nodelist, the head of which is the node to process. An optional argument, its default is a period (.), that is, the node referenced by the method object (nr).

newvalue

A Unicode string that is the string-value to assign to the context node's Value property. Prior to Sirius Mods version 7.6, this is an EBCDIC string.

Usage Notes

• As of Sirius Mods version 7.3, the string terms in the method syntax may include only non-null EBCDIC characters that translate to Unicode. As of Sirius Mods version 7.6, these strings are Unicode or are converted to Unicode. For more information about the effects of this version 7.6 change, see Strings and Unicode. For an example of a specific effect that involves the Value method, see item ?? refid=univalx..
• The string-value of a node depends on the node's type:

  Node type

  String-value

  Attribute

  The normalized attribute value (see ?? refid=norval.)

  Comment or Text

  The content of the node

  Element or Root

  The concatenation of the value of all its Text descendants, in document order

  PI

  The portion of the processing instruction following its target and any whitespace immediately following the target

• Value is not allowed to be set if the head of the argument XPath result is the Root or is an Element with a non-text child.

Examples

1. The following example displays the string “Hello, world!”:

       Begin
       %d Object XmlDoc
       %d = New
       %d:LoadXml('<t><a>Hell</a>' With '<b>o, world!'</b></t>')
       Print %d:Value('/t')
       End
   

2. The following example assigns a new value to the “billRate” element:

       %worker:Value('billRate') = %worker:Value('billRate') - 10
   

3. In the following request run under Sirius Mods version 7.6 or greater, an ampersand (&) in an Element value is returned by the Value method and displayed by two Print statements.

       Begin
       %d Object XmlDoc Auto New
       %nodeX is XmlNode
       %nodeY is XmlNode
       %ebc is longstring
   
       %nodeY = %d:AddElement('top')
       %nodeX = %nodeY:AddElement('abc', 'Jack & Jill')
   
       %ebc = %nodeX:Value
       Print %ebc
   
       Print %nodeX:Value
       End
   

   The result is:

       Jack & Jill
       Jack & Jill
   

   Because the Unicode string returned from Value in the example above is assigned to an EBCDIC variable before it is printed for the first time, the initial Print statement simply displays the EBCDIC variable value as is. The assignment to EBCDIC causes a straight character-by-character conversion using the current Unicode translation tables.

   The second Print statement has to convert the Unicode value returned by the Value expression. For this, under Sirius Mods version 7.6 or greater, Print uses character encoding for any Unicode characters that do not translate to EBCDIC, and an ampersand is converted to to the string &. In effect, Print calls the UnicodeToEbcdic method (?? refid=fu2e.) with parameter setting CharacterEncode=True to implicitly convert the Unicode value. Implicit Unicode conversions are further described ?? reftxt=* refid=uniconv..

Request-Cancellation Errors

• XPath is invalid.
• Result of (XPath) is empty.
• Insufficient free space exists in CCATEMP.

See Also

• ?? reftxt=ValueDefault refid=valdf. is a function that obtains a node's string value and that allows an empty XPath result.
• For more information about using XPath expressions, see XPath.