I think your elements are in the default namespace. An example:
<test xmlns="http://www.test.org/"> <parent> <child/> <child/> </parent> </test> The expression '//child' returns nothing because it is looking for all 'child' elements that are not declared in a namespace. However the expression //*[name()='child'] will return the elements because it is looking for all elements with a name of 'child'. As you see the expressions are not equivalent. Regards, Edwin http://www.edankert.com/ ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf _______________________________________________ dom4j-user mailing list dom4j-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dom4j-user