to_array method

to_array()

Copies all nodes from the collection to a new array of nodes.

def to_array(self):
    ...

Remarks

You should not be adding/removing nodes while iterating over a collection of nodes because it invalidates the iterator and requires refreshes for live collections.

To be able to add/remove nodes during iteration, use this method to copy nodes into a fixed-size array and then iterate over the array.

Returns

An array of nodes.

Examples

Shows how to select certain nodes by using an XPath expression.

doc = aw.Document(MY_DIR + 'Tables.docx')
# This expression will extract all paragraph nodes,
# which are descendants of any table node in the document.
node_list = doc.select_nodes('//Table//Paragraph')
# Iterate through the list with an enumerator and print the contents of every paragraph in each cell of the table.
index = 0
for node in node_list:
    print(f'Table paragraph index {index}, contents: "{node.get_text().strip()}"')
    index += 1
# This expression will select any paragraphs that are direct children of any Body node in the document.
node_list = doc.select_nodes('//Body/Paragraph')
# We can treat the list as an array.
self.assertEqual(4, len(node_list.to_array()))
# Use "select_single_node" to select the first result of the same expression as above.
node = doc.select_single_node('//Body/Paragraph')
self.assertIsInstance(node.as_paragraph(), aw.Paragraph)

See Also

NodeList.count property