newbie XPATH newsgroup ?

a) is there a XPath newsgroup

b) very simply all I want to know is there is a mechanism (exists/proposed)
for switching between a compact XPath representation and a more verbose XML
structured representation ?

where

   /provider[@id=123]/library[@id=234]/detail[@id=345]/*

can be alternatively represented something like

       <provider xpath="[@id=123]" >
             <library xpath="[@id=234]" >
                    <detail xpath="[id=345]/*" />
              </library>
       </provider>