The Pathan project grew out of DecisionSoft's work on XMLScript, an
XML transformation language.

XPath was adopted as a node selection language by XMLScript when the
XPath specification was ratified by the W3C.  DecisionSoft's XMLScript
processor is based on Xerces-C, a Document Object Model compliant XML
parser. Pathan therefore was designed from the base up to be fully
compatible with the Xerces parser.

Pathan 1 represents the open sourcing of the XPath component of
DecisionSoft's XMLScript processor.  Pathan 1 features a full
implementation of the XPath 1.0 Specification.  Pathan 1 implements
the W3C DOM Level 3 XPath Specification (Working Draft February 08
2002) providing a powerful and coherent interface between XPath and
DOM and hence a standardised interface with Xerces.