Select a node with XPath whose child node contains a specific inner text

Question

Given the following XML:

    
abcText1cba
    
abcText2cba
         


        

Answer 1

//li[./span[contains(text(),'Text1')]] - have just one target result
//li[./span[contains(text(),'Text')]] - returns two results as target

This approach is using something that isn't well documented anywhere and just few understands how it's powerful

Element specified by Xpath has a child node defined by another xpath

Answer 2

Try this XPath

li/*[@innertext='text']

Answer 3

Your current xpath should be correct. Here is an alternative but ugly one.

XmlNodeList nodes = doc.SelectNodes("//span/parent::li/span[contains(text(), 'Text1')]/parent::li");

We find all the span-tags. Then we find all the li-tags that has a span-tag as child and contains the 'Text1'.

OR simply:

//span[contains(text(), 'Text1')]/parent::li

Answer 4

Just for readers. The xpath is correct. OP: Perhaps xpath parser didnt support the expression?

/root/li[span[contains(text(), "Text1")]]