method

first

v1_8_6_287 - Show latest stable - Class: REXML::XPath

first(element, path=nil, namespaces=nil, variables={})

public

Finds and returns the first node that matches the supplied xpath.

element:	The context element
path:	The xpath to search for. If not supplied or nil, returns the first node matching ’*’.
namespaces:	If supplied, a Hash which defines a namespace mapping.

 XPath.first( node )
 XPath.first( doc, "//b"} )
 XPath.first( node, "a/x:b", { "x"=>"http://doofus" } )

# File lib/rexml/xpath.rb, line 22
    def XPath::first element, path=nil, namespaces=nil, variables={}
      raise "The namespaces argument, if supplied, must be a hash object." unless namespaces.nil? or namespaces.kind_of?(Hash)
      raise "The variables argument, if supplied, must be a hash object." unless variables.kind_of?(Hash)
                        parser = XPathParser.new
                        parser.namespaces = namespaces
                        parser.variables = variables
                        path = "*" unless path
                        element = [element] unless element.kind_of? Array
                        parser.parse(path, element).flatten[0]
                end

first

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