public interface Pointer
extends Cloneable, Comparable, Serializable

Pointers represent locations of objects and their properties in Java object graphs. JXPathContext has methods ( getPointer() and ( iteratePointers() , which, given an XPath, produce Pointers for the objects or properties described the the path. For example, ctx.getPointer ("foo/bar") will produce a Pointer that can get and set the property "bar" of the object which is the value of the property "foo" of the root object. The value of ctx.getPointer("aMap/aKey[3]") will be a pointer to the 3'rd element of the array, which is the value for the key "aKey" of the map, which is the value of the property "aMap" of the root object.

Modifies the value of the object, property or collection element this pointer represents.

Object getValue()

Returns the value of the object, property or collection element this pointer represents. May convert the value to one of the canonical InfoSet types: String, Number, Boolean, Set. For example, in the case of an XML element, getValue() will return the text contained by the element rather than the element itself.

Object getNode()

Returns the raw value of the object, property or collection element this pointer represents. Never converts the object to a canonical type: returns it as is. For example, for an XML element, getNode() will return the element itself rather than the text it contains.

void setValue(Object value)

Modifies the value of the object, property or collection element this pointer represents.

String asPath()

Returns a string that is a proper "canonical" XPath that corresponds to this pointer. Consider this example:

Pointer ptr = ctx.getPointer("//employees[firstName = 'John']")

The value of ptr.asPath() will look something like "/departments[2]/employees[3]" , so, basically, it represents the concrete location(s) of the result of a search performed by JXPath. If an object in the pointer's path is a Dynamic Property object (like a Map), the asPath method generates an XPath that looks like this: " /departments[@name = 'HR']/employees[3]" .