XPath Wildcard

A list of XPath wildcards which are used with the XPath expressions.

Index	Wildcard	Expression
1)	*	It is used to match any node.
2)	.	It is used to match the current node in context.
3)	@*	It is used to match any attribute.
4)	node()	It is used to match node of any type.

XPath Wildcard Example

Let's take an example to create a table of <employee> element with their detail, by iterating over each employee.

Employee.xml

<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type = "text/xsl" href = "employee.xsl"?>
<class>
   <employee id = "001">
      <firstname>Abhiram</firstname>
      <lastname>Kushwaha</lastname>
      <nickname>Manoj</nickname>
      <salary>15000</salary>
   </employee>
   <employee id = "002">
      <firstname>Akash</firstname>
      <lastname>Singh</lastname>
      <nickname>Bunty</nickname>
      <salary>25000</salary>
   </employee>
    <employee id = "003">
      <firstname>Brijesh</firstname>
      <lastname>Kaushik</lastname>
      <nickname>Ballu</nickname>
      <salary>20000</salary>
   </employee>
    <employee id = "004">
      <firstname>Zoya</firstname>
      <lastname>Mansoori</lastname>
      <nickname>Sonam</nickname>
      <salary>30000</salary>
   </employee>
</class>

Employee.xsl

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version = "1.0">
   xmlns:xsl = "http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">	
    <xsl:template match = "/">
       <html>
          <body>
             <h2>Employee </h2>
             <xsl:apply-templates select = "class/*" />
          </body>
       </html>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match = "class/*">
      <xsl:apply-templates select = "@id" />
       <xsl:apply-templates select = "firstname" />
       <xsl:apply-templates select = "lastname" />
       <xsl:apply-templates select = "nickname" />
       <xsl:apply-templates select = "salary" />
       <br />
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match = "@id">
       <span style = "font-size = 22px;">
          <xsl:value-of select = "." />
       </span>
       <br />
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match = "firstname">
      First Name: <span style = "color:blue;">
          <xsl:value-of select = "." />
       </span>
       <br />
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match = "lastname">
      Last Name: <span style = "color:green;">
          <xsl:value-of select = "." />
       </span>
       <br />
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match = "nickname">
      Nick Name: <span style = "color:red;">
          <xsl:value-of select = "." />
       </span>
       <br />
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match = "salary">
      Salary: <span style = "color:brown;">
          <xsl:value-of select = "." />
       </span>
       <br />
    </xsl:template>
 </xsl:stylesheet>

Output: