XPath - Selecting elements that equal a value

Question

In Xpath, I am wanting to select elements that equal a specific value.

Sample XML data:

    
        <         


        

Answer 1

The XPath spec. defines the string value of an element as the concatenation (in document order) of all of its text-node descendents.

This explains the "strange results".

"Better" results can be obtained using the expressions below:

//*[text() = 'qwerty']

The above selects every element in the document that has at least one text-node child with value 'qwerty'.

//*[text() = 'qwerty' and not(text()[2])]

The above selects every element in the document that has only one text-node child and its value is: 'qwerty'.

Answer 2

Try

//*[text()='qwerty'] because . is your current element