I need a single XPath expression to select any text preceding a node, regardless of the structure and hierarchy.
For example, how do I extract text before the node <target/> in the following cases:
Case 1:
<a>1</a>
<b>2</b>
<target/>
Expected result: 2
Case 2:
<p>1</p>
<do>
<bt>2</bt>
</do>
<target/>
Expected result: 2
Case 3:
<aa>Text <b>child text</b></aa>
<target/>
Expected result: 'child text' or 'Text child text'
Case 4:
<p>Text <b>child text</b> tail</p>
<target/>
Expected result: 'tail', 'text tail' or 'text child text tail'
And so on, there can be as many cases as possible. Actually, all that I want is the last character of the preceding text, so it doesn't matter whether the result contains text from any nested intermediate child elements.