XML and XPath handling in VBA - excel

Question

I'm trying to parse a XML into a spreadsheet using VBA, and for some reason I can't to the node that I want using XPath, here how my XML looks like:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<cteProc xmlns="http://www.somesite.com" versao="3.00">
<CTe xmlns="http://www.somesite.com">
<infCte Id="an id" versao="3.00">
<ide>
<cUF>23</cUF>
<cCT>00000557</cCT>
<CFOP>6932</CFOP>
<natOp>some text </natOp>
<mod>57</mod>
</ide>
<compl>
<xObs>TEXT</xObs>
</compl>
</infCte>
</CTe>
</cteProc>
I'm trying to get at least to the ide node, so I can loop over the rest and get the information I want.
My code looks like this:
Public Sub parseXml()
Dim oXMLFile As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
Dim nodes As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList
path2 = "C:\Users\me\Desktop\adoc.xml"
Set oXMLFile = New MSXML2.DOMDocument60
oXMLFile.Load (path2)
Set nodes = oXMLFile.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("/CTe")
So I tried to print the length of the nodes, I get this:
debug.print nodes.length
> 0
if I loop over like this:
Public Sub parseXml()
Dim oXMLFile As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
Dim nodes As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList
Dim node As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode
path2 = "C:\Users\me\Desktop\adoc.xml"
Set oXMLFile = New MSXML2.DOMDocument60
oXMLFile.Load (path2)
Set nodes = oXMLFile.DocumentElement.ChildNodes
For Each node In nodes
Debug.Print node.BaseName
Next node
I get this:
> CTe
So, If I do a giant loop I can get the information I want, but I think there must be a simpler sulution for this.

Answer 1

Since your XML uses namespaces, XPath also needs to deal with namespaces.
The following works for me using your XML:
Public Sub parseXml()
Dim oXML As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
Dim oNodes As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList
Dim oItem As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode
Dim path2 As String
path2 = "P:\adoc.xml"
Set oXML = New MSXML2.DOMDocument60
oXML.Load path2
oXML.setProperty "SelectionLanguage", "XPath"
oXML.setProperty "SelectionNamespaces", "xmlns:ssc=""http://www.somesite.com"""
Set oNodes = oXML.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("ssc:CTe")
For Each oItem In oNodes
MsgBox oItem.nodeName
Next
End Sub
There using
oXMLFile.setProperty "SelectionNamespaces", "xmlns:ssc=""http://www.somesite.com"""
I define a prefix ssc for the namespace
http://www.somesite.com.
The scc is my own choice (somesite.com). This prefix is needed for the XPATH in selectNodes method to work properly.
If you don't want defining the namespace, you would must use the local-name() XPath function. For example:
Set oNodes = oXML.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("*[local-name() = 'CTe']")