US Patent 7523119 XPath evaluation and information processing

An XML parser for inputting XML event strings which constitute an XML document to be processed, and an XPath evaluating unit for executing evaluation of the XPath by streaming processing are provided. This XPath evaluating unit serially evaluates the XPath with respect to the respective XML events transferred from the XML parser, and retains information concerning a result of partial evaluation of this XPath when the XPath is partially established for a given XML event. Then, when the last step of this XPath is established, the XPath is judged as established for the XML document.