JXPath provides APIs for traversal of graphs of JavaBeans, DOM and other types of objects using the XPath syntax.

XPath is the official expression language of XSLT. In XSLT, you mostly use XPath to access various elements of XML documents. You can do that with JXPath as well. In addition, you can read and write properties of JavaBeans, get and set elements of arrays, collections, maps, transparent containers, various context objects in Servlets etc. In other words, JXPath applies the concepts of XPath to alternate object models.

You can also have JXPath create new objects if needed.

JXPath uses JavaBeans introspection to enumerate and access JavaBeans properties.

The interpretation of the XPath syntax in the context of Java object graphs is quite intuitive: the "child" axis of XPath is mapped to JavaBean properties. In fact, the "attribute:" axis is mapped exactly the same way, so the "child::" and "attribute:" axes can be used interchangeably with JavaBeans.