I was only associating the namespace with the first element

Do you mean you "only specified a prefix for the first node test in the XPath"? There's no way to not specify a namespace for a node test in an XPath, so there's no opportunity to default to anything.

I was doing this...

$action_requests =
  $xpc->findnodes('//admin_server:request/*/action');
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//admin_server:request/*/action
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is short for

/descendant::admin_server:request/child::*/child::action
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There are three node tests in that path

• descendant::admin_server:request
• child::*
• child::action

There is one prefix in that path

• admin_server
There are two namespaces referenced by that path
• Which ever namespace is associated with admin_server (referenced by descendant::admin_server:request)
• The null namespace (referenced by child::action)

(* matches nodes in any namespace)

Hmm I've been trying to validate the xml with my schema and my schema validation works perfectly in my xml editor (I'm using Oxygen XML Editor... not that it matters).

The validation fails when using XML::LibXML::Schema.

#----------------------------------------------------------
#  Validate against XML schema.
#----------------------------------------------------------
my $xml_schema =
  XML::LibXML::Schema->new(
    location => '/Users/dattanik/Programs/XML/admin_server.xsd' );
eval { $xml_schema->validate($dom); };

if ($@) {
    print "Looks like schema validation has failed. \n";
    print "$@", "\n";
}
else {
    print "XML Schema validation succeeded.\n";
}
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I have a primitive facet for validating IP addresses...(\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3} that's embedded in my XML Schema. I am also collapsing the embedded spaces in the application_host_ip element.

Nothing special here but it fails there when validating thru XML::LibXML::Schema.... the validation of the exact same XML document is successful using my schema. My relevant schema code is:

<xs:element name="application_host_ip">
                <xs:annotation>
                    <xs:documentation>The IP address of the host on wh
+ich the application is executing.</xs:documentation>
                </xs:annotation>
                <xs:simpleType>
                    <xs:restriction base="xs:string">
                        <xs:pattern value="(\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}">
                            <xs:annotation>
                                <xs:documentation>This regular express
+ion does a rudimentary check on the IP address.</xs:documentation>
                            </xs:annotation>
                        </xs:pattern>
                        <xs:maxLength value="15"/>
                        <xs:minLength value="7"/>
                        <xs:whiteSpace value="collapse"/>
                    </xs:restriction>
                </xs:simpleType>
            </xs:element>
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Now I checked the support docs in XML::LibXML::Schema but it does not seem to provide any additional info besides the class interface.

The relevant output from STDOUT is printed...

Looks like schema validation has failed 
Element 'application_host_ip' [ST local, facet 'pattern']: The value '
+123.123.24.56' is not accepted by the pattern '(\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}'
+.
Element 'application_host_ip' [ST local, facet 'pattern']: The value '
+123.123.24.56' is not accepted by the pattern '(\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}'
+.
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I am doing all this as part of my pet project to monitor a myriad of applications running across my production network. These guys have log4j writers and currently the maintenance folks are individually logging into those boxes via ssh and running standard maintenance procedures. I am automating this process by writing a POE server that listens on these log4j and presents status info to a web client. The web user agent can then send requests in standard XML format that is interpreted by the server and it does the maintenance tasks... much more reliable. This is the last part :)....

Try replacing \d with [0-9]. I seem to remember having run into that problem. [0-9] is better anyway, since \d matches way more than [0-9].

No luck...

Looks like schema validation has failed. 
Element 'application_host_ip' [ST local, facet 'pattern']: The value '
+123.123.24.56' is not accepted by the pattern '([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]
+{1,3}'.
Element 'application_host_ip' [ST local, facet 'pattern']: The value '
+123.123.24.56' is not accepted by the pattern '([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]
+{1,3}'.
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Just wondering.... if this could be a bug in XML::LibXML::Schema.... and would it be worthwhile submitting a bug report on CPAN.