IMPORTXML for structured data in Google Sheets - Cell-by-Cell Formula Trace

Sample Data

This sheet contains a URL to an XML file and an XPath query to extract all book titles from that XML.

Cell	Value
A1	URL
B1	XPath Query
A2	https://example.com/sample.xml
B2	//book/title

Formula Trace

=IMPORTXML(A2, B2)

Step 1: A2

Step 2: B2

Step 3: IMPORTXML("https://example.com/sample.xml", "//book/title")

Cell Reference Map

    A                   B
1 | URL               | XPath Query       
2 | https://example.com/sample.xml | //book/title

The formula references cell A2 for the URL and B2 for the XPath query.

Result

    C
1 | Titles           
2 | The Great Gatsby  
3 | 1984             
4 | To Kill a Mockingbird

The IMPORTXML formula outputs the list of book titles vertically starting from the cell where the formula is entered.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does the XPath query "//book/title" select in the XML?

A All <title> elements inside <book> elements anywhere in the XML

B Only the first <title> element in the XML

C All <book> elements inside <title> elements

D All elements named 'book/title' as a single tag

Key Result

IMPORTXML(url, xpath_query) fetches XML from the URL and extracts data matching the XPath query as a list.