Soapui & Xpath : Problem with assertion for a simple node

Question

Hi, i'm currently using SoapUI Free edition 3.2-beta 2. And i have a weird problem with a Xpath assertion:

I have this in response:

(...) And i'm using this xpath to assert that the "niveau" with id='2' is in the response:

Xpath expression; //*:niveau[@id='2']

& the expected result is :

but i have this error message: XPathContains comparison failed, expecting [ ], actual was [null]

but if i try this : exitsts(//*:niveau[@id='2']) & the expected result is : True it works !!?

But this syntax is quite difficult to read & lmaintain & i would like to use the 1st syntax (i ve tried to ignore namespace, add them.. stil doesnt work).

Any idea ?

Regards

Answer 1

The XPath that you declare is actually run against the XML in the response. Then it compares it against the text in "Expected Result".

I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to do. Given this response:

<root>
  <a>
    <b id="2" />
  </a>
  <c>
  </c>
</root>

If you put this in the "Declare": //b[@id=2], it will run that XPath against the XML. That XPath (untested) should select just the <b> element.

Then your "Expected Result" should be: <b id="2" />.

Answer 2

Give the pro version trial a spin, and you'll see that it's got a nice xpath expert built-in. With a sample request present, you can just pick the value that you're looking for and it'll generate the xpath and show you the value. Very cool. Copy/paste the xpath back into the free version and you're all set. Or, if you're like me, push harder for your boss to buy the Pro version for you.