CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlxmlxpath
greatwitenorth
greatwitenorth

Reputation: 2411

XPath of immediate child text vs all descendant text?

I'm trying to retrieve up a category hierarchy from the following markup:

<ul class="categories">
    <li>My top level category
        <ul>
            <li>my second level category</li>
        </ul>
    </li>
</ul>

I want to get the name of the top level category using the following xpath:

//ul[@class='categories']/li/text()

But that obviously returns all of the text of that li including the second level categories.

How do I retrieve on the top level category using an xpath. You can assume that categories will only be two levels deep (Top level and second level categories).

Upvotes: 2

Views: 809

Answers (1)

kjhughes
kjhughes

Reputation: 111786

But that obviously returns all of the text of that li including the second level categories.

Actually, no, //ul[@class='categories']/li/text() will only return the immediate children text nodes of the matching //ul[@class='categories']/li elements. In this case: My top level category.

Had you specified either of the following XPaths, you'd have also selected my second level category:

  • //ul[@class='categories']/li//text()
  • string(//ul[@class='categories']/li)

Upvotes: 1

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