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I am unable to get the xpath of the following span element:

<span data-ft="&#123;&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;&#125;" class="userContent">This is the third post of this page.</span>

I have pasted the xml file at this url:http://pastebin.com/MfXsYSJQ (Just ctrl+f it). I am trying the following xpath:

html/body//span[@class='userContent']

But its returning null.So why is it so and how should I get it from the page?

rahulserver
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1 Answers1

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Your span is part of a comment. You can not write XPath expressions for the contents of comments.

EDIT Further clarification: Look at your pastbin code, search for the span and look if it is part of a comment. You can simplify the job the the use of xmllint --format. You will see that xmllint will not indent the body of the comment. And your span is part of such an unindented block, which is part of a comment

rahulserver
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ceving
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  • Look at your pastbin code, search for the span and look if it is part of a comment. You can simplify the job the the use of `xmllint --format`. You will see that xmllint will not indent the body of the comment. And your span is part of such an unindented block, which is part of a comment ``. – ceving Jan 24 '14 at 11:30
  • Ah got it! That solved the problem. But I am surprised to see that it is commented. Its generated using HtmlUnit and works find once I log in to the site.Anyways thats a different issue though. Thanks!! – rahulserver Jan 24 '14 at 11:43