Question about XPath with functions in it

Question

this is a follow-up question of my previous thread:

Please help me on understanding this XPath

I have an XPath as:

Answer 1

All answers with the exception of @Alejandro 's have the same common fault:

It is not true that:

preceding-sibling::*

selects all preceding-sibling nodes.

It only selects all preceding-sibling elements.

To select all preceding-sibling nodes use:

preceding-sibling::node()

There are these kind of nodes in XPath:

1. The root node (denoted as /), also denoted as document-node() in XPath 2.0

2. Element nodes. such as

3. Text nodes. In Hello the text node is the only child of a and has a string value of " Hello "

4. Comment nodes.

5. Processing instruction nodes.

6. Attribute nodes. In x is the only attribute of a.

7. Namespace nodes. a has a namespace node with value "my:namespace" and name (prefix) my

Nodes of the first 5 kinds can be selected using the preceding-sibling:: axis:

preceding-sibling::node()

selects all sibling nodes of kind 1 to 5.

preceding-sibling::*

selects all element preceding siblings

preceding-sibling::someName

selects all elemens named "someName" preceding siblings

preceding-sibling::text()

selects all text nodes preceding siblings (useful in mixed content)

preceding-sibling::comment()

selects all comment node preceding siblings.

preceding-sibling::processing-instruction()

selects all preceding siblings that are PIs

preceding-sibling::processing-instruction('someName')

selects all preceding siblings that are PIs and are named "someName".