VBA select XML node by attribute

Question

I've been searching SO (and the rest of the Internet) for the answer, but I can't seem to find a solution for selecting an XML node based on an attribute.

Example XML:

<foo>
    <bar name="do">A</bar>
    <bar name="rae">B</bar>
    <bar name ="mi">C</bar>
</foo>

So if I want to get B by the rae value of the name attribute, I've tried:

myValue = myXML.selectSingleNode("//foo/bar/").Attributes.getNamedItem("rae").Text

Thanks!

I did come across that, but it does not answer my specific question since it uses a For Each to iterate through the items. I'm hoping to pull a value from a specific node before I start any further parsing. — Jesse
– Jesse, Commented Aug 5, 2013 at 17:52
Then you can leave off the For Each loop? Instead of looping through the children, grab a node by its name, then grab the Attributes, then the named item. The code within the For Each loop should still be applicable. — Jaycal
– Jaycal, Commented Aug 5, 2013 at 18:10
If you look at the example I provided it is essentially all of the code within the for loop. The problem is I can't retrieve it based on name without a loop because there are multiple nodes with that name. — Jesse
– Jesse, Commented Aug 5, 2013 at 18:20

Jesse · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-06 12:21:53Z

3

The solution that ended up working for me is:

myValue = myXML.selectSingleNode("var[@name='ID']").Text

answered Aug 6, 2013 at 12:21

Jesse

2,0539 gold badges28 silver badges45 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

Tomalak Over a year ago

That's the correct way to do it. However be aware that this will fail with a run-time error when selectSingleNode turns up Nothing. Better is Set node = myXML.selectSingleNode("var[@name='ID']") and a check If Not node Is Nothing Then ....

Jesse Over a year ago

I will have to implement that at some point. My current, albeit terrible, way of selecting is to only grab the names of fields I know exist in my data set. Thanks for the suggestion!

Tomalak Over a year ago

You can never be sure something exists. ;-)

Jaycal · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-05 22:04:29Z

1

If there are multiple nodes, then I don't think you'd be able to use SelectSingleNode. Instead, you can use XPath and getElementsByTagName. In addition, (though it may not be necessary in your case) to ensure that you're only getting one node, you can use NextNode. The final code using your sample XML would be...

myValue = myXML.getElementsByTagName("/foo[@name='rae']/bar").nextNode.nodeTypedValue

edited Aug 5, 2013 at 22:04

answered Aug 5, 2013 at 19:33

Jaycal

2,0871 gold badge13 silver badges21 bronze badges

1 Comment

Jesse Over a year ago

selectSingleNode ended up working for me. Much thanks for your input!

APrough · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-06 12:47:32Z

1

Using your example...

myValue = myXML.SelectSingleNode("/foo/bar[@name='rae']").InnerXML

Note the use of the @ in the variable name. Your criteria (everything between the square brackets) goes on the level that you are searching through.

edited Aug 6, 2013 at 12:47

answered Aug 5, 2013 at 18:59

APrough

2,6913 gold badges25 silver badges31 bronze badges

3 Comments

Jesse Over a year ago

Your solution did not work for me but it ended up being extremely close to the working solution. Please see my post. Much thanks for steering me in the right direction!

Jesse Over a year ago

Also, it doesn't seem that the bracketed criteria searches a level higher.

APrough Over a year ago

You're right. The square brackets go on the bar element. Fixed code above. I was testing using an XML file that has the tag at a higher level, so I got confused ;)

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

VBA select XML node by attribute

3 Answers 3

3 Comments

1 Comment

3 Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

3 Comments

1 Comment

3 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related