xpath returns charlist instead of integer

[Fnux]

Well, this is pretty weird... Is there any reason I get '0' instead of 0 ?

iex(33)> count = "<posts count=\"0\" offset=\"0\"/>" |> xpath(~x"//posts/@count"l)
['0']
iex(34)> List.first count
'0'
iex(35)> i List.first count
Term
  '0'
Data type
  List
Description
  This is a list of integers that is printed as a sequence of characters
  delimited by single quotes because all the integers in it represent valid
  ASCII characters. Conventionally, such lists of integers are referred to as
  "charlists" (more precisely, a charlist is a list of Unicode codepoints,
  and ASCII is a subset of Unicode).
Raw representation
  [48]
Reference modules
  List
iex(36)> 

[seantanly]

@Fnux just noticed this and thought I could shed some light.

xpath defaults to returning char list and therefore the above behavior is correct.

To get integer, you have to explicitly cast it.

iex> count = "<posts count=\"0\" offset=\"0\"/>" |> xpath(~x"//posts/@count"li)
> [0]
iex> List.first count
> 0

If you're just trying to get the value of attribute count, simply do

iex> count = "<posts count=\"0\" offset=\"0\"/>" |> xpath(~x"//posts/@count"i)
> 0

Hope this helps. :)

[Fnux]

Old issue I forgot to close ! Thank you @seantanly