XPath - Wildcard

XPath defines the following wildcards on nodes to be used with the XPath expressions.

S.No.	WildCard & Description
1	* used to match any node.
2	. used to match the current node in context.
3	@* used to match any attribute
4	node() used to match node of any type

Example

This example creates a table of <student> element with their details, by iterating over each student.

students.xml

<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type = "text/xsl" href = "students.xsl"?>
<class>
   <student rollno = "393">
      <firstname>Dinkar</firstname>
      <lastname>Kad</lastname>
      <nickname>Dinkar</nickname>
      <marks>85</marks>
   </student>
   <student rollno = "493">
      <firstname>Vaneet</firstname>
      <lastname>Gupta</lastname>
      <nickname>Vinni</nickname>
      <marks>95</marks>
   </student>
   <student rollno = "593">
      <firstname>Jasvir</firstname>
      <lastname>Singh</lastname>
      <nickname>Jazz</nickname>
      <marks>90</marks>
   </student>
</class>

students.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>Students</h2>
            <xsl:apply-templates select = "class/*" />
         </body>
      </html>
   </xsl:template>

   <xsl:template match = "class/*">
      <xsl:apply-templates select = "@rollno" />
      <xsl:apply-templates select = "firstname" />
      <xsl:apply-templates select = "lastname" />
      <xsl:apply-templates select = "nickname" />
      <xsl:apply-templates select = "marks" />
      <br />
   </xsl:template>

   <xsl:template match = "@rollno">
      <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 = "marks">
      Marks:<span style = "color:gray;">
         <xsl:value-of select = "." />
      </span>
      <br />
   </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Verify the output