How can I use xpath to find element with optional sub element?

Question

I'm using Selenium with xpath to get certain elements. I have a html page with the following elements:

<td>A</td>
<td><em>B</em></td>

I've tried using the following xpath expression to find td elements:

//td[contains(text(), 'A')] 
//td[contains(text(), 'B')]

The expression finds <td>A</td> but not <td><em>B</em></td>

How can I write an xpath expression which finds td tags with both no sub element and one or more sub elements?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

3

Try this instead

//td[contains(., 'A')]
//td[contains(., 'B')]

This will return the td tags. The difference between . and text() you can refer here - XPath: difference between dot and text().

edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

Community

answered Sep 07 '16 at 10:58

Grasshopper

Note that use of `contains()` here will also match `AA`, `A monkey`, etc. This may or may not be desirable. – kjhughes Sep 07 '16 at 12:37

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:22

1

Here, you want to test the string value of td:

//td[. = 'B']

That way, both

<td>B</td>

and

<td><em>B</em></td>

will be selected, regardless of the em.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:22

Community

answered Sep 07 '16 at 12:33

kjhughes

Thanks, but i'd like to have contains, not equals. – magnusarinell Sep 07 '16 at 12:37

Guy · Answer 3 · 2016-09-07T11:15:05.100

0

You can use ancestor to get the first <td> tag

//*[contains(text(), 'A')]/ancestor::td[1]
//*[contains(text(), 'B')]/ancestor::td[1]

And in general use

String text = "A";
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[contains(text(), '" + text + "')]/ancestor::td[1]"));

edited Sep 07 '16 at 11:15

answered Sep 07 '16 at 10:59

Guy

With this selector it will return the innermost tag which is em but the person is looking for td tag. – Grasshopper Sep 07 '16 at 11:02
Thanks, but I just want the td elements with matching texts. – magnusarinell Sep 07 '16 at 12:38

3 Answers3