Xpath that returns the whole document in python

Question

I am trying to debug some inherited code. So there is a line of code elt = doc.xpath('body/div/pre[@id="bb flags"]')[0]

I want to see what the entire document looks like at that point, rather than just a specific piece. So what xpath should I insert there? i.e.

elt_entire_document = doc.xpath(new xpath)
logging.info("The full document here is " + elt_entire_document.text)

Is this even possible with xpath, or is it more complicated than that?

why do you have to use xpath to see what's there in the document. What's there in doc? — supputuri, Nov 12 '19 at 19:13
@supputuri Why are you asking? What does that have to do with my question? — Chozang, Nov 12 '19 at 19:24
I was asking what `doc` refers in your code, not the content of your doc. — supputuri, Nov 12 '19 at 19:52

Florian Bernard · Answer 1 · 2019-11-12T19:52:12.563

1

Simply like this, based on our comments :

logging.info("The full document here is " + text)

edited Nov 12 '19 at 19:52

answered Nov 12 '19 at 19:27

Florian Bernard

2,561
1
9
22

Florian, thanks, but that gives me: TypeError: can only concatenate str (not "NoneType") to str If I then change it to logging.warning('td145 doc.text = ' + str(doc.text)) I get doc.text = None Which I know isn't correct as the whole document, as the xpath as it currently is does return something. – Chozang Nov 12 '19 at 19:32
1

@Tharpa what library do you used? – Florian Bernard Nov 12 '19 at 19:46
1

My predecessor used etree. doc = etree.HTML(txt). I guess that indirectly answers my question. If I print out txt in the calling method, I have my answer. – Chozang Nov 12 '19 at 19:48
Yes, I have updated my anwser accordingly. but you get it. – Florian Bernard Nov 12 '19 at 19:53

kjhughes · Answer 2 · 2019-11-12T21:09:04.703

Your question title seems to be asking about selecting a whole document, yet your question body seems to be asking about displaying a selected node...

Selecting the whole document via XPath

Selecting the whole document might mean any of the following:

/ selects the root node of XML document.
/* selects the document element (aka the root element) of the XML document.
(Its parent is the root node.)
string(/) selects the string-value of the XML document.

Xpath that returns the whole document in python

2 Answers2

Selecting the whole document via XPath

Python pretty print subtree