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Using XPATH statements within SAP NetWeaver 2004s BEx Web Application Designer – Part 1

Introduction

In this blog, I will give you a very simple example on grabbing information from the XML DataProvider available within the SAP NetWeaver 2004s BEx Web Application Designer. If you use a query view as your dataprovider within a web application, and want to get the technical of the query view, this isn’t available in the text elements. Therefore, you may want to write this out. This blog shows how to use a very simple XPATH that will write this out to the new “Text” web item that is available. This is the first in many examples I’ll provide in this blog series. This is the simplest example I could think of. They examples will get more involved within this series as the series goes on…

What is XPATH?

As defined on the w3schools website: “XPath is a language for finding information in an XML document. XPath is used to navigate through elements and attributes in an XML document. XPath is a major element in the W3C’s XSLT standard – and XQuery and XPointer are both built on XPath expressions. So an understanding of XPath is fundamental to a lot of advanced XML usage.” –  http://wiht.link/XPath-intro

Rendering the query view technical name in a text field

In general, this is actually very easy. Follow these simple steps:

Additional Examples?

There are some great examples in the online help. See these additional examples:

 

Summary

Hope you found this useful. XPATH will definitely help you extend the capabilities of the BEx Web Application Designer, so definitely check it out. Also, stay tuned for more involved examples in this blog series. Check out the examples in the online help as well as they are very good! </li>

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      10 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Kenneth Murray
      Kenneth Murray
      Any chance you could add some context as to what's happening and what else is available from XPATH?

      Thanks, Ken Murray

      Author's profile photo Kenneth Murray
      Kenneth Murray
      I changed it to query instead of view and it works fine.  Also I did this in 2004s.
      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author
      Hey Ken,

      I'd look at the examples I provided that link to the online help. There's a ton you can do with XPATH. Basically, all the data and values are available in the BICS_VIEW. Add the "XML - DataProvider Information" web item to the web template and when you run the web application, right click and choose "View Source". Here you'll see the BICS_VIEW xml tree and you can grab any value and dynamically assign values based on it.

      Author's profile photo Kenneth Murray
      Kenneth Murray
      Hi Prakash,  Any idea if this will be supported going forward as WAD is absorbed by VC?

      Thanks!

      Author's profile photo Kenneth Murray
      Kenneth Murray
      Also, just curious if you'll have Part II?   I'm really curious how to use XPath to get multiple values like say I wanted to list the description of all of the variables.  I don't see an example of this.  If you could provide an example it would be greatly appreciated!

      thanks again and keep up the good work!
      Ken Murray

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author
      Hey Ken,

      I'm no longer working in the RIG so I'm not sure what the future roadmap looks like as much for WAD and VC. In terms of XPATH, you can read multiple values. If Brian is still at Forest, he should be able to help you out with that. If not, I'll see if I can write up an example in blog when I get a few months.

      Cheers,
      Prakash

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Hi,
      just tried to create a web template as you described, but I'm getting the following error:
      No Path-Values allowd for "CREATE_ITEM"                 
       
         

      Any ideas?
      Regards
      Christophe

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author
      See OSS Note: 1056650
      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Thank you!
      Problem solved...
      Author's profile photo Shlomi Weiss
      Shlomi Weiss
      Hi Prakash,

      I have the same problem,
      but I fail to understand the instruction on the note.

      After trying to imlement the solution, I get an error saying:
      "Parameter WEB_TEMPLATE_ACTIONS can not be located here"

      Please help

      Shlomi