May 27, 2021 W3C Standard
XPath is the language used to select parts of an XML document.
XPath is designed for XSLT, XQuery, and XPointer.
To learn more about XPath, read our XPath tutorial.
To learn more about XQuery, read our XQuery tutorial.
To learn more about XSLT, read our XSLT tutorial.
XPath 1.0 became the W3C recommendation on November 16, 1999.
XPath 2.0 became the W3C recommendation on January 23, 2007.
XPath 2.0 is a language derived from XPath 1.0 and XQuery. XPath 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 are created from the same source, they have many of the same syntax, and many of the text is consistent.
| Specification | Draft/proposal | Recommended time |
|---|---|---|
| XPath 1.0 | 16. Nov 1999 | |
| XPath 2.0 Requirements | 03. Jun 2005 | |
| XPath 2.0 Language | 14. Dec 2010 | |
| XPath 2.0 Functions | 14. Dec 2010 | |
| XPath 2.0 Data Model | 14. Dec 2010 | |
| XPath 2.0 Semantics | 14. Dec 2010 | |
| XPointer | 16. Aug 2002 |