How to get XPATH of a selected node in Java

Hi,
I have an application in which on press of a button an XML is shown on the browser.
Now when a user selects a node then i need to get the XPath of the selected node.
How to do that?
Can anybody help....

Thanks

Not so easy, since the XPath for a particular node can be a variety of different things. A node doesn't necessarily have an absolute XPath. Can't you just give your node unique id attributes?

Yes I know that.
I have a fixed xml file which will always be shown.
And moreover it has repeated elements and is not having an ID.

I got a handy javascript utility to do the same but it doesn't work well for large files so i had to leave the thought.
But my application constarint is such that
when a user selects a node then the corresponding XPath is to be stored for some manipulations.
Is there any way out.....

Thanks..

I got a handy javascript utility to do the same but it doesn't work well for large files so i had to leave the thought.

Do you want to do this in Java or JavaScript?

And moreover it has repeated elements...when a user selects a node then the corresponding XPath is to be stored for some manipulations

If you have repeated elements and you are using XPath to identify a particular element then if the user select one of the repreted element, they are implicitly selecting them all. Is this how you want it to work?
[ May 18, 2007: Message edited by: Paul Sturrock ]

I am sorry to have quoted about Javascript as i have already discarded it.
I apologise for the same.

Yes the xml has repeated nodes but the value at each node is unique.

I have to get the XPath of the node that is selcted by the user.
As i never know what value will be selected by the user i can't use it to get Xpath.
I mean that both the XPath and the value are known at runtime and i have to get hold of both of them.

Hope i made myself clear.

Thanks..

Originally posted by Anubhav Anand:
I am sorry to have quoted about Javascript as i have already discarded it.

But you said this XML is "shown in the browser". I assume this means you embed it in HTML in some way? (If not, what does it mean?) If so, then I don't see how you can use Java. That pretty much leaves Javascript as the only practical way of working with whatever you sent to the browser.

Originally posted by Paul Sturrock:
Not so easy, since the XPath for a particular node can be a variety of different things.

Well, that's true, there can be different XPath expressions that refer to the same node.

A node doesn't necessarily have an absolute XPath.

Sure it does. If nothing else you can use something like this:

/root/abc[3]/data[6]

[ May 18, 2007: Message edited by: Paul Clapham ]

D'oh! Of course. But doesn't that assume the ordering of the XML is preserved, and isn't ordering implementation-dependent?

Yes, it is true that I am displaying the XML in browser but I am using XML parsers of jdom.
Now, the application flow is like --->> The user now selects a node in the
displayed XML and then I have to get the value at the current node and the XPath of the node to be stored in the DB.

Is there any way out..??

Thanks in advance.