Yesterday I was on the lookout for a free tool that would help me write XPath statements. I put a shout out on Twitter and Johan Barnard replied saying :

Give XMLPad a try http://www.wmhelp.com/xmlpad3.htm

I’m sure there are legions of developers out there that know all about XMLPad but I had never heard about it so I suspect some of you reading haven’t either. Today I downloaded it to give it a run out and I gotta say – I love it. I only used it to do one thing –constructing an XPath expression to point to a particular Configuration definition in a .dtsx file- and it allowed me to do that with consummate ease. The feature I particularly loved was that, similar to Google Suggest, it showed me results from my expression as I typed.

Here is a screenshot of my XPath expression to find (and just try saying this in a hurry)

the value of a property whose DTS:Name attribute equals ‘ConfigurationString’ of a Configuration definition where the value of that Configuration definition’s property whose DTS:Name attribute equals ‘ObjectName’, equals ‘BIConfig

My XPath expression:

/DTS:Executable/DTS:Configuration[DTS:Property[@DTS:Name=’ObjectName’]=’BIConfig’]/DTS:Property[@DTS:Name=’ConfigurationString’]

and believe me, there was no way I would have been able to come up with that without a tool to help me!

So, an easy tip for you – if you need to write XPath expression download XMLPad for free from http://www.wmhelp.com/xmlpad3.htm and see what it can do for you.

That’s all. Its now Friday evening and I’m shutting down and relaxing before heading to the big game at Twickenham tomorrow (yes, I have a ticket ). Have a good one!

@Jamiet