# XPath blues

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/xpath-blues/2538>\
**Category:** Dev/API Corner\
**Tags:** plugin-dev\
**Created:** [September 8, 2009, 4:33am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/xpath-blues/2538 "2009-09-08T04:33:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ajmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ec8ea/32.png) [@ajmas](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ajmas)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 4:33am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/xpath-blues/2538/1 "2009-09-08T04:33:38Z")

</div>

This is probably better suited for an XML forum, but given it is in the context of Plex I’ll ask anyhow:  
  
  
  
I have an XML file in XSPF format, and I am trying to get the tracks using xpath, but for the life of me I can’t work out what the trick is. The file looks something like:

```auto

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><br />
<playlist version="1" xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/"><br />
	<title>My Playlist</title><br />
	<trackList><br />
		<track><br />
			<title>hello world</title><br />
			<image>http://.../</image><br />
			<location>file:///.../</location><br />
		</track><br />
	</trackList><br />
</playlist>

```

  
The relevant code I am using is:  
  

```auto

xml = XML.ElementFromURL(XSPF_URL, errors='ignore')<br />
feed = xml.xpath('//playlist/trackList/track')

```

  
but this always returns 0 elements.  
  
I can confirm that the root node indeed has two children with:   
  

```auto

Log('size: ' + str( len(xml.getchildren()) ) )

```

  
Can anyone suggest what I should be doing to get a list of the track elements? I suspect this might have something to do with the anonymous name space, but I can't quite figure it out.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sansnipple](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@sansnipple](https://forums.plex.tv/u/sansnipple)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 5:48am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/xpath-blues/2538/2 "2009-09-08T05:48:19Z")

</div>

have you tried //playlist//trackList//track,   
  
also, depending on what else is in the xml, just ‘//track’ could work  
  
for more specific help than that id need to see the actual xml  
  
if you’re not already, you should use the xpather firefox plugin, it makes this so much easier

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sander1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4bbf92/32.png) [@sander1](https://forums.plex.tv/u/sander1)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/xpath-blues/2538/3 "2009-09-08T15:39:59Z")

</div>

Or try it with a lowercase L in tracklist:

```auto

feed = xml.xpath('//playlist/tracklist/track')

```

  
I ran into a similar problem once with "pubDate" versus "pubdate".

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ajmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ec8ea/32.png) [@ajmas](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ajmas)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/xpath-blues/2538/4 "2009-09-08T19:50:55Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Or try it with a lowercase L in tracklist:
> 
> ```auto
> 
> feed = xml.xpath('//playlist/tracklist/track')
> 
> ```
> 
>   
> I ran into a similar problem once with "pubDate" versus "pubdate".

  
  
The case is correct, as described in the specification:  
  
[http://www.xspf.org/xspf-v1.html](http://www.xspf.org/xspf-v1.html)  
  
it is inconsistent, when you compare 'playlist' and 'trackList', but that's the way it is defined.  
  
Finally after a bit of help with 'XPath Checker' (seemed better than xpather) and some experimenting:  
  

```auto

myNamespaces = {'ns1':'http://xspf.org/ns/0/'}<br />
items = xml.xpath('//ns1:track',namespaces=myNamespaces )<br />
<br />
for item in items:<br />
   title = item.xpath('ns1:title',namespaces=myNamespaces )[0].text

```

  
Even if the namespace is not prefixed, you still need to declare a mapping, since it is still mapped. It is the URL of the namespace that is significant, not the alias.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 20, 2019, 8:30pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/xpath-blues/2538/5 "2019-12-20T20:30:46Z")

</div>

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