xslt-lab/site/content/xslt/functions/xpath-parse-xml.md

title, description, date, version, versionLabel, category, syntax, tags

title	description	date	version	versionLabel	category	syntax	tags
parse-xml()	Parses a well-formed XML string and returns it as a new document node, usable like any other loaded XML document.	2026-04-18T00:00:00Z	2.0	XSLT 2.0	node function	parse-xml(string)	xslt reference xpath xslt2

Description

parse-xml() takes a string containing a well-formed XML document and returns a new document node. The resulting tree can be navigated with XPath expressions just like a document loaded with doc() or document().

If the string is not a well-formed XML document, the function raises a dynamic error. For XML fragments (content without a single root element), use parse-xml-fragment() instead.

parse-xml() is defined in XPath 3.0 but is widely supported in Saxon 9.x and later with XSLT 2.0 stylesheets.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
string	xs:string?	Yes	A string containing a complete, well-formed XML document.

Return value

document-node() — a new document node whose children are the parsed content, or the empty sequence if the argument is the empty sequence.

Examples

Parse XML stored in an element

Input XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<payload>
  <data><![CDATA[<?xml version="1.0"?><items><item id="1">Alpha</item><item id="2">Beta</item></items>]]></data>
</payload>

Stylesheet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

  <xsl:template match="/payload">
    <xsl:variable name="inner" select="parse-xml(data)"/>
    <extracted>
      <xsl:copy-of select="$inner/items/item"/>
    </extracted>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<extracted>
  <item id="1">Alpha</item>
  <item id="2">Beta</item>
</extracted>

Count elements in a dynamically built XML string

Stylesheet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="text"/>

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:variable name="xml-string">&lt;root&gt;&lt;a/&gt;&lt;b/&gt;&lt;c/&gt;&lt;/root&gt;</xsl:variable>
    <xsl:variable name="doc" select="parse-xml($xml-string)"/>
    <xsl:value-of select="count($doc/root/*)"/>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

3

Notes

• parse-xml() requires the input to be a complete, well-formed document with a single root element. Use parse-xml-fragment() for fragments.
• The resulting document node has no document URI (document-uri() returns the empty sequence).
• Available in Saxon 9.x+ when using version="2.0" stylesheets; it is formally part of XPath 3.0.

See also

• parse-xml-fragment()
• document-uri()