CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlxmlxpathhtml-agility-pack
josh_k_wsu
josh_k_wsu

Reputation: 13

Selecting element based on attribute order in XPath?

I am working on a project using the Html-Agility-Pack and I need to build a list of each link that has an href attribute as its first attribute. What XPath expression would be used for this?

Example (I would want to only select the first):

  1. <a href="http://someurl.com"/>
  2. <a id="someid" href="http://someurl.com"/>

Upvotes: 1

Views: 345

Answers (1)

kjhughes
kjhughes

Reputation: 111660

No, don't do that.

You really don't want to select elements based upon the ordering of their attributes because attribute order is arbitrary in HTML and XML. Find another criteria to limit your selections:

  • attribute presence or attribute value
  • child element presence or string value
  • preceding element value, possibly a label
  • etc

You want to choose a criteria that's invariant across all instances of the HTML/XML documents you may encounter. Attribute order is not such a criteria.

Upvotes: 1

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