xpath ends-with text not a valid XPath expression

Question

I'm trying to get elements with inner text that start with A new payment and end with was created.

<span>A new payment pi_123432 for $40.03 USD was created</span>

var xpath = "//span[starts-with(text(), 'A new payment') and ends-with(text(), 'was created')]";
var matchingElement = document.evaluate(xpath, document, null, XPathResult.FIRST_ORDERED_NODE_TYPE, null).singleNodeValue;

I'm getting not a valid XPath expression

Uncaught DOMException: Failed to execute 'evaluate' on 'Document': The string '//span[starts-with(text(), 'A new payment') and ends-with(text(), 'was created')]' is not a valid XPath expression.

When I break it down this xpath works:

var xpath = "//span[starts-with(text(), 'A new payment')]";

But this xpath throws the same error

var xpath = "//span[ends-with(text(), 'was created')]"

But I can't tell why.

I'm on chrome.

ends-with is valid on XPath 2.0 which browser might not support. https://stackoverflow.com/a/40935676/2834978 — LMC, Sep 26 '22 at 19:09
Does this answer your question? [Xpath "ends-with" does not work](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22436789/xpath-ends-with-does-not-work) — Siebe Jongebloed, Sep 26 '22 at 20:24
If you need XPath 2.0 (or 3.0, or 3.1) in the browser, try SaxonJS. — Michael Kay, Sep 27 '22 at 08:47

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 26 '22 at 19:14

1

ends-with is only in Xpath 2.0 and chrome uses Xpath 1.0

Xpath 1.0

var xpath = "//span[starts-with(text(), 'A new payment') and substring(text(), string-length(text()) - string-length('was created') + 1)  = 'was created']";

answered Sep 26 '22 at 19:14

Dashiell Rose Bark-Huss

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 27 '22 at 12:47

Using SaxonJS 2 and XPath 3.1:

var xpath = "//span[starts-with(., 'A new payment') and ends-with(., 'was created')]";
var matchingElements = SaxonJS.XPath.evaluate(xpath, document, { xpathDefaultNamespace : 'http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' });

console.log(matchingElements);

<script src="https://martin-honnen.github.io/Saxon-JS-2.4/SaxonJS2.rt.js"></script>

<span>A new payment pi_123432 for $40.03 USD was created</span>

See also the download page and the documentation of SaxonJS.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 03 '22 at 00:41

But this xpath throws the same error
var xpath = "//span[ends-with(text(), 'was created')]"
But I can't tell why.

fn:ends-with() appeared for the first time in the XPath 2.0 specification. It isn't a standard XPath 1.0 function.

In XPath 1.0 to find the value of ends-with($s, $suffix) use:

substring($s, string-length($s) - string-length($suffix) + 1) =  $suffix

xpath ends-with text not a valid XPath expression

3 Answers3

Xpath 1.0