Bug 118619 - WEBSERVICE(URI) / FILTERXML Xpath not well explained
Summary: WEBSERVICE(URI) / FILTERXML Xpath not well explained
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Documentation (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
6.1.0.1 rc
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: topicDoc
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2018-07-08 07:09 UTC by MBB
Modified: 2021-06-05 14:24 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


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Description MBB 2018-07-08 07:09:20 UTC
Description:
"FILTERXML Apply a XPath expression to a XML document."
While it does give a definition and example, XPath is a quite complex function that is not obvious for those new to it. (I worked through a lot of different errors before I got it working)
At the very least it should contain a link to more info about Xpath syntax, like  https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_xpath.asp

Or even include a discription of the different elements like / // @ etc.

For a more advanced help page, maybe some of the Ask LibreOffice tips and tricks could be combined?
https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/questions/scope:all/sort:activity-desc/page:1/query:filterxml/ 

Steps to Reproduce:
Help> search for filterxml or webservice

Actual Results:
-

Expected Results:
info of how to use the function if you use it for the first time, or where to get such info.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: Yes


OpenGL enabled: Yes

Additional Info:
Comment 1 Zhivko 2019-02-20 08:17:57 UTC
There is no info in help/documentation how to set webservice/rest call timeout when this call happens in LO macro.

Macro of call is:
        url = "http://localhost:8080/mytestwebservice?param1=23424"
	svc = createUnoService("com.sun.star.sheet.FunctionAccess")
	ret = svc.callFunction("WEBSERVICE", Array(url))


Anybody knows where "ws timeout" be found?

There are usually connect timeout and response timeout. It would be great if both of those could be defined somewhere in settings of LibreOffice.
Comment 2 himajin100000 2020-03-18 10:26:42 UTC
I believe it's currently not possible to set timeout for http URIs in WEBService.

I guess,

WebDAV content provider used for HTTP URIs relies on Apache Serf, which depends on Apache Portable Runtime, and in the following code, SERF_DURATION_FOREVER is specified.

https://opengrok.libreoffice.org/xref/core/ucb/source/ucp/webdav/SerfRequestProcessor.cxx?r=3a349b7c#371
Comment 3 Steve Fanning 2021-06-05 14:24:34 UTC
I have updated the relevant page on the Calc Functions wiki (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Calc_Functions/FILTERXML) to provide a little more detail about the FILTERXML function.

Maybe this can be used to improve the help description for this function?