XPathNavigator.Prefix Property

Definition

Namespace:

System.Xml.XPath

Assemblies:

netstandard.dll, System.Xml.ReaderWriter.dll

Source:

XPathNavigator.cs

When overridden in a derived class, gets the namespace prefix associated with the current node.

C#

public abstract string Prefix { get; }

Property Value

String

A String that contains the namespace prefix associated with the current node.

Examples

The following example iterates over the node tree recursively, and displays information about Element and Text nodes.

C#

static void XPathNavigatorMethods_MoveToNext()
{

    XPathDocument document = new XPathDocument("books.xml");
    XPathNavigator navigator = document.CreateNavigator();
    XPathNodeIterator nodeset = navigator.Select("descendant::book[author/last-name='Melville']");

    while (nodeset.MoveNext())
    {
        // Clone iterator here when working with it.
        RecursiveWalk(nodeset.Current.Clone());
    }
}

public static void RecursiveWalk(XPathNavigator navigator)
{
    switch (navigator.NodeType)
    {
        case XPathNodeType.Element:
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(navigator.Prefix))
                Console.WriteLine("<{0}>", navigator.LocalName);
            else
                Console.Write("<{0}:{1}>", navigator.Prefix, navigator.LocalName);
            Console.WriteLine("\t" + navigator.NamespaceURI);
            break;
        case XPathNodeType.Text:
            Console.WriteLine("\t" + navigator.Value);
            break;
    }

    if (navigator.MoveToFirstChild())
    {
        do
        {
            RecursiveWalk(navigator);
        } while (navigator.MoveToNext());

        navigator.MoveToParent();
        if (navigator.NodeType == XPathNodeType.Element)
            Console.WriteLine("</{0}>", navigator.Name);
    }
    else
    {
        if (navigator.NodeType == XPathNodeType.Element)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("</{0}>", navigator.Name);
        }
    }
}

The example takes the books.xml file as an input.

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>   
<bookstore>  
    <book genre="autobiography" publicationdate="1981-03-22" ISBN="1-861003-11-0">  
        <title>The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin</title>  
        <author>  
            <first-name>Benjamin</first-name>  
            <last-name>Franklin</last-name>  
        </author>  
        <price>8.99</price>  
    </book>  
    <book genre="novel" publicationdate="1967-11-17" ISBN="0-201-63361-2">  
        <title>The Confidence Man</title>  
        <author>  
            <first-name>Herman</first-name>  
            <last-name>Melville</last-name>  
        </author>  
        <price>11.99</price>  
    </book>  
    <book genre="philosophy" publicationdate="1991-02-15" ISBN="1-861001-57-6">  
        <title>The Gorgias</title>  
        <author>  
            <name>Plato</name>  
        </author>  
        <price>9.99</price>  
    </book>  
</bookstore>  

Remarks

The Prefix property gets the namespace prefix associated with the current node. For example, the Prefix property returns bk for the <bk:book> element. If a prefix does not exist, or the XPathNodeType of the current node is not Element or Attribute, the Prefix property returns String.Empty.

Applies to