xpath - Select xml node by attribute name ignoring namespace of that attribute

Question

I have a node like this:

<meta name="og:description" content="Here's the content" />

I want to be able to select this element if the name is "description" whether it's in a namespace or not. I need to be able to select the meta tag if it's name is "og:description", "description", "blah:description", etc.

I've seen resources for xpath that show how to select within a namespace, but not irrespective of a namespace.

Answer 1

Use:

//meta[@*[local-name() = 'description']]

This selects all meta elements in the XML document that have an attribute with local-name "description".

By definition, the standard XPath function local-name() produces the name of the node from which the namespace prefix (if any) is stripped off.

Do note: Always avoid using the // pseudo operator if the structure of the XML document is statically known. Often using // causes slow execution.