AquaPath is a Developer Tool that allows you to evaluate XPath 2.0 expressions against any XML document and view the result sequence in a dynamic, intuitive tree representation.

Using AquaPath is simple. Paste the contents of an existing XML document or even author an XML document using AquaPath itself (AquaPath is also a rudimentary text editor). The source text of your XML document appears under the "Source" tab in an AquaPath document window. Use this tab to author or edit your document.

Next, type an XPath expression into the "XPath" text field at the top of the AquaPath document window. Click "Evaluate" to see the matching node sequence. You will see a status bar message just below the XPath text field showing either the number of nodes in the result sequence or and error message if your XML document is not well-formed or if your XPath expression is invalid.

Under the "String-Value" tab, you'll find a text area containing the string value of the result sequence. The whitespace of each node has been compressed so that you will see a single node's string value per line. This tab's contents are convenient for copy-pasting the results to another app.

The "Display" tab is where all the magic happens. Here you will see a dynamic (DHTML), syntax-colored representation of your XML document with "-" or "+" signs next to each element node. Use these symbols for collapsing and expanding a given element and its children. Also, all nodes and text matching your XPath expression will be highlighted in yellow.

By default, the "Context Node" of your XPath query is the XML "root node". AquaPath allows you to specify a specific context node for your XPath expression in two ways:

1. Enter the desired path in the Context Node text field manually
2. Right-click an existing node in a previous "Display" document tree, and select "Set as Content Node".