XPath is an expression language which is powerful but not quite straightforward to apply. It is used in XSLT-Sheets and the like and thus forms a building-block of many state-of-the-art XML applications. Thus you typically will want to be sure about what you are doing when using XPath.
The XPath-View is an environment in which you can test, use and play with XPath-expressions. The expressions can be evaluated against the input on the fly when you attach the view to an XML-document open in an (Eclipse-)editor. When you change the XPath-Expression or the input text, the result is updated behind the scenes. Also you can choose which type of result you want (the XPath-Standard allows for Node-Sets, Booleans, Strings or Numbers - the Xalan-Implementation which is used with the plug-in adds Node as a fifth output-type).
XPath-Developer also offers TAB-completion for XPath expressions. All TAB-completion suggestions as well as the corresponding help-text popups are customizable. They are defined in .xml-files distributed with the plug-in. These files can be changed to add additional hints, remove rarely used hints or change the descriptions. See here for details on how to customize TAB-completion.
The XPath-View is based on the Apache-Xalan implementation of the XPath-language (Version 2.7.0 to be exact), which is distributed with the plug-in.
XPath Expressions can be persisted for later reference.
See here for screen-shots and details on using the XPath-view.
XPath-Developer is distributed under the Eclipse Public License, v 1.0. You can find the license details online at http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html.
The license is an Open Source license. The source can be found here as a zip-file for download.
I hope the plug-in serves you well. In case you find any problems with using it, have ideas for additional useful features or any other comments, contact me.
If you like the plug-in or you have comments to make: let others know! XPath-Developer is listed on eclipse-plugins.info and on eclipseplugincentral.com. Both sites allow commenting and rating plug-ins.
Release 1.0.1
This is a patch because 1.0.0 was compiled under Java 5 leading to problems with users using JRE 1.4. No functional differences compared to 1.0.0 - Sorry for the trouble!Release 1.0.0
Alternatively, you may directly download the jar-file from the following links. Unpack it to the plugins-directory of your eclipse-installation into a directory called de.babe.eclipse.plugins.XPathDeveloper_x.y.z where x.y.z is the version. Note that plugins installed in this way can not be managed using the Eclipse Configuration-Management tools.
Current Release
Source
Version 1.0.0 and 1.0.1 (no source changes)
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