XPath: select text node

159
votes

Having the following XML:

<node>Text1<subnode/>text2</node>

How do I select either the first or the second text node via XPath?

Something like this:

/node/text()[2]

of course doesn't work because it's the merged result of every text inside the node.

2
xmlxpathselection
You wrote: /node/text()[2] [...] doesn't work because it's the merged result of every text inside the node That's wrong: it means second text node child of node root element. The string value (concatenation of descendant text nodes) would be string(/node) – user357812
You mean that Xpath query should work? Well, I guess I have another problem somewhere else then. ;) Thanks! – kernel

2 Answers

199
votes

Having the following XML:

<node>Text1<subnode/>text2</node>

How do I select either the first or the second text node via XPath?

Use:

/node/text()

This selects all text-node children of the top element (named "node") of the XML document.

/node/text()[1]

This selects the first text-node child of the top element (named "node") of the XML document.

/node/text()[2]

This selects the second text-node child of the top element (named "node") of the XML document.

/node/text()[someInteger]

This selects the someInteger-th text-node child of the top element (named "node") of the XML document. It is equivalent to the following XPath expression:

/node/text()[position() = someInteger]
29
votes

your xpath should work . i have tested your xpath and mine in both MarkLogic and Zorba Xquery/ Xpath implementation.

Both should work. 

/node/child::text()[1] - should return Text1
/node/child::text()[2] - should return text2


/node/text()[1] - should return Text1
/node/text()[2] - should return text2