Select node with dot "." in name

January 5, 2023

I want to find the text value of a node that has a dot (".") in its name. I did not find a way to correctly escape the dot in my XPath expression. Here is a sample of my XML file:

<order>
    <purchase-order-no>1412530</purchase-order-no>
    <expected-delivery-date>2023-10-21</expected-delivery-date>
    <supplier-no>600857</supplier-no>
    <shop>
        <code>123</code>
        <name>Shop Name XYZ</name>
        <street>Random Street 23</street>
        <pc>9876</pc>
        <city>CityABC</city>
    </shop>
    <lines>
        <pos.>1</pos.>
        <article-nr>5180063</article-nr>
        <supplier-article-nr>523.442.0</supplier-article-nr>
        <qty>1</qty>
        <unit>PCE</unit>
        <unit-price>5.44</unit-price>
        <details>some optional details</details>
    </lines>
    <lines>
        <pos.>2</pos.>
        <article-nr>5185838</article-nr>
        <supplier-article-nr>741.823.1</supplier-article-nr>
        <qty>3</qty>
        <unit>PCE</unit>
        <unit-price>2.93</unit-price>
        <details/>
    </lines>
</order>

I would like to get the 1 and 2 values of each <pos.> node.

Trying to escape the dot with \ or \\ did not work and gave me an Invalid character '\' in expression error.

I am using a workaround using the order of the nodes:

//lines/node()[1]/text()

but I want to find a secure way of doing it. I do not control the format of the files I receive, and I cannot be sure that this order will stay so – and I cannot easily request to change it either.