--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/gwt-client/src/main/java/org/dive4elements/river/client/server/auth/saml/XPathUtils.java	Wed May 08 17:56:13 2013 +0200
@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+/* Copyright (C) 2011, 2012, 2013 by Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde
+ * Software engineering by Intevation GmbH
+ *
+ * This file is Free Software under the GNU AGPL (>=v3)
+ * and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY! Check out the
+ * documentation coming with Dive4Elements River for details.
+ */
+
+package org.dive4elements.river.client.server.auth.saml;
+
+import javax.xml.namespace.QName;
+import javax.xml.xpath.XPathConstants;
+
+import org.w3c.dom.Node;
+import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
+
+import org.dive4elements.artifacts.common.utils.XMLUtils;
+
+
+/**
+ * Convenience methods to evaluate XPath queries on SAML documents. The
+ * methods are just front-ends for the {@link XMLUtils.xpath} method.
+ */
+public class XPathUtils
+{
+    /**
+     * Evaluates an XPath query on a given object and returns the result
+     * as a given type, using SamlNamespaceContext as the namespace
+     * context.
+     * @param root  The object which is used as the root of the tree to
+     * be searched in.
+     * @param query The XPath query
+     * @param returnType The type of the result.
+     * @return The result of type 'returnType' or null if something
+     * went wrong during XPath evaluation.
+     */
+    public static final Object xpath(Object root, String query,
+                                     QName returnType) {
+        return XMLUtils.xpath(root, query, returnType,
+                              SamlNamespaceContext.INSTANCE);
+    }
+
+
+    /**
+     * Evaluates an XPath query on a given object and returns the result
+     * as a String, using SamlNamespaceContext as the namespace context.
+     * @param root  The object which is used as the root of the tree to
+     * be searched in.
+     * @param query The XPath query
+     * @return The result as a String or null if something went wrong
+     * during XPath evaluation.
+     */
+    public static final String xpathString(Object root, String query) {
+        return (String)xpath(root, query, XPathConstants.STRING);
+    }
+
+
+    /**
+     * Evaluates an XPath query on a given object and returns the result
+     * as a Node, using SamlNamespaceContext as the namespace context.
+     * @param root  The object which is used as the root of the tree to
+     * be searched in.
+     * @param query The XPath query
+     * @return The result as a Node or null if something went wrong
+     * during XPath evaluation.
+     */
+    public static final Node xpathNode(Object root, String query) {
+        return (Node)xpath(root, query, XPathConstants.NODE);
+    }
+
+
+    /**
+     * Evaluates an XPath query on a given object and returns the result
+     * as a NodeList, using SamlNamespaceContext as the namespace
+     * context.
+     * @param root  The object which is used as the root of the tree to
+     * be searched in.
+     * @param query The XPath query
+     * @return The result as a NodeList or null if something
+     * went wrong during XPath evaluation.
+     */
+    public static final NodeList xpathNodeList(Object root, String query) {
+        return (NodeList)xpath(root, query, XPathConstants.NODESET);
+    }
+}