Navigating Along the descendant Axis
The descendant::
axis of a given context node locates all element nodes which the context node contains, that is, all children, all the children's children, and so on. The location step:
/descendant::*
locates all elements descended from the root node, and therefore locates all elements in a given document.
Since the descendant::
axis extends the child::
axis recursively through the context node's tree, the same restrictions apply as for the child::
axis. In particular, using a name node test, specific element names or the * for all elements, do not select comments and PIs descended from the context node. If you need to select comments and PIs as well as elements, use:
descendant::node()
attributes and namespaces can never be located on the child::
axis, and therefore cannot be located on the descendant::
axis.
See Also
Sample XML File for Navigating XPath Axes | Navigating Along the child Axis