Using xPath on an HTTP xml body

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Posted on by Macaurly

Hi,

I'm trying to change the xml format of an HTTP request to JSON format using the xpath expression in flow.

Here is my xml :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:gml="http://www.opengis.net/gml" xml:base="https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/sitename/_api/">
<id>d1fd24b2-eeb1-4820-a545-f071653f467e</id>
<title/>
<updated>2017-12-01T10:40:43Z</updated>
<entry m:etag="&quot;4&quot;">
 <id>cda821b5-e13b-4dff-9c2e-5be55f5fa3d1</id>
 <category term="SP.Data.EmployeesListItem" scheme="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/scheme"/>
 <link rel="edit" href="Web/Lists(guid'5b359dba-549b-4210-8afa-5e4fe2aeb166')/Items(3431)"/>
 <link rel="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/related/LineManager" type="application/atom+xml;type=entry" title="LineManager" href="Web/Lists(guid'5b359dba-549b-4210-8afa-5e4fe2aeb166')/Items(3431)/LineManager">
 <m:inline>
 <entry>
 <id>4f07e464-50cd-4faf-8324-8a4b26878b5a</id>
 <category term="SP.Data.UserInfoItem" scheme="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/scheme"/>
 <title/>
 <updated>2017-12-01T10:40:43Z</updated>
 <author>
 <name/>
 </author>
 <content type="application/xml">
 <m: properties>
 <d:EMail>testemail@test.com</d:EMail>
 <d:Title>ps admin</d:Title>
 </m: properties>
 </content>
 </entry>
</m:inline>
</link>
<title/>
<updated>2017-12-01T10:40:43Z</updated>
<author>
 <name/>
</author>
<content type="application/xml">
<m: properties>
 <d: PSFullName>PS Employee</d: PSFullName>
</m: properties>
</content>
</entry>
</feed>

Here is my expression :

xpath(xml(body('Invoke_an_HTTP_request')), string('/feed/entry/link[2]/m:inline/entry/content/m: properties/d:EMail'))

I get the follwing error :

InvalidTemplate. Unable to process template language expressions in action 'Set_variable' inputs at line '1' and column '2158': 'The template language function 'xpath' parameters are invalid: the 'xpath' parameter must be a supported, well formed XPath expression. Please see https://aka.ms/logicexpressions#xpath for usage details.'.

The desired result is to retrieve the email address in the <d:Email > tag.

Thanks for any help in advance,

Macaurly.

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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why aren't you receiving that request in JSON?

gonna play with this a bit.

the main issue with the XPath here is because of the namespaces. XPath probably doesn't know what m or d are.

to perform query without caring about the namespace, you can use local-name()

try:

xpath(xml(outputs('Compose')), '//*[local-name()="properties"]/*[local-name()="EMail"]/text()')
Compose = XML string

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garrytrinder 5 on at

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Thanks for the reply John 🙂

Its a bit of a long story really as to why its coming back as XML. We have a list that exceeds the lookup limit in SharePoint Online, but because there is no $select on the SharePoint connector it fails as it tries to return too much data, as a work around we are using the Azure AD HTTP Connector which has no option to pass headers so it comes back as XML, hence why we are here 🙂

I'll try the XPath suggestion you posted, thank you.

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Macaurly 7 on at

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Thanks John, this solves our problem 🙂

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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hi,

i have a similar issue here, but i am a bit confused about the wokraround you mentioned. what exactly does compose action have in "Compose = XML String"?

thanks in advance.

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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write that expression in a Compose action.

Compose is used like a "build string" action here - use the expression editor to enter the formula in a Compose to extract the fields you want through XPath

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rgparisoto 220 on at

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Very very very helpfull!!!

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rgparisoto 220 on at

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Guys!
Whats I have to do to get this three items?

Thank you for any help.
Robson.

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