element_exists¶

Tests if an XML element exists at the specified XPath location.

Parameters¶

dst (str, required): Path to the XML file (supports glob patterns)
xpath (str, required): XPath expression to locate the element
namespaces (dict, optional): Namespace prefix to URI mapping

Example¶

Test if a specific element exists:

- name: check_user_element
  function: xml.element_exists
  parameter:
    dst: "/path/to/users.xml"
    xpath: ".//user[@id='123']"

With namespaces:

- name: check_namespaced_element
  function: xml.element_exists
  parameter:
    dst: "/path/to/document.xml"
    xpath: ".//ns:element"
    namespaces:
      ns: "http://example.com/namespace"

Notes¶

Returns success if at least one element matches the XPath
Uses Python’s xml.etree.ElementTree for parsing
XPath support is limited compared to full XPath 2.0 (basic element/attribute selection)
For complex XPath expressions, consider using xpath_result_matches function