XPath: Default to 'Node A', select 'Node B' instead if 'Node B' is not empty

Question

I need to create an XPath expression that does the following:

• Returns the element inside of \'NodeA\' by default
• Returns the element inside of \'NodeB\' i

Answer 1

This XPath expression returns NodeB if it exists (and has text content) and NodeA in the other case:

//my:NodeB[text()] | //my:NodeA[text() and not(//my:NodeB[text()])]

If you want to get all sub-elements you can append /* after the selected node, like this

//my:NodeB[text()]/* | //my:NodeA[text() and not(//my:NodeB[text()])]/*