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Examples of Index Path Expressions

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Examples of Index Path Expressions

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Last Updated: April 15, 2026
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MarkLogic Server
Version 11.0
Documentation

The following table provides examples of XPath expressions that are valid and invalid for defining a path range index.

Note:
Avoid creating multiple path indexes that end with the same element/attribute, as ingestion performance degrades with the number of path indexes that end in common element/attributes.

Valid	Invalid
`//a`	`./a`
`/a/b/c`	`/a/b[c=/p/q]`
`/a/b[c]`	`/a/b[c=5+3]`
`/a/b[c=5 and b=3]`
`/a/b[1]`
`//a/b[c<5]`
`//a/b[c="test"]`
`/a/*/c`
`a/b`
`/a[./b]/c`	/a[/b`]/c`
`a`
`/a/(b\|c)`	`/a/(/b\|/c)`
`/a/(b\|c)`	`(/a/b/c)[2]`
`author[first-name="John"][last-name="Smith"]`
`author[first-name="John" and last-name="Smith"]`
`author[first-name="John" or first-name="Sam"]`
`/a/b[.//c]` `/a/b[c]`	`/a/b/[./c]` `/a/b[//c]` `/a/b/[/a/b/c]`
`/a/(./b \| c)/d`	`/a/(/a/b \| /a/c)/d`
`/a/child::*/b`	`/a/parent::*/b`
`/a[fn:matches(@expr, 'is')]`	`/a/[fn:matches(fn:name(.),"Joe")]`
`/a/fn:contains("this")`	`/a/[fn:contains(fn:name(.),"Bob")]`

Namespace prefixes are permitted in all valid path expressions. Note that you can also use fn:matches and fn:contains as part of the path expression, but you cannot use other functions in the path expression. Use cts:valid-index-path to test if a path expression is valid for an index path.