Xpath: select div that contains class AND whose specific child element contains text

Question

With the help of this SO question I have an almost working xpath:

//div[contains(@class, \'measure-tab\') and contains(., \'someText\')]

Ho

Answer 1

To find a div of a certain class that contains a span at any depth containing certain text, try:

//div[contains(@class, 'measure-tab') and contains(.//span, 'someText')]

That said, this solution looks extremely fragile. If the table happens to contain a span with the text you're looking for, the div containing the table will be matched, too. I'd suggest to find a more robust way of filtering the elements. For example by using IDs or top-level document structure.

Answer 2

You could use the xpath :

//div[@class="measure-tab" and .//span[contains(., "someText")]]

Input :

<root>
<div class="measure-tab">
  <td> someText</td>
</div>
<div class="measure-tab">
  <div>
    <div2>
       <span>someText2</span>
   </div2>
  </div>
</div>
</root>

Output :

    Element='<div class="measure-tab">
  <div>
    <div2>
      <span>someText2</span>
    </div2>
  </div>
</div>'

Answer 3

You can use ancestor. I find that this is easier to read because the element you are actually selecting is at the end of the path.

//span[contains(text(),'someText')]/ancestor::div[contains(@class, 'measure-tab')]

Answer 4

You can change your second condition to check only the span element:

...and contains(div/span, 'someText')]

If the span isn't always inside another div you can also use

...and contains(.//span, 'someText')]

This searches for the span anywhere inside the div.