How to select elements containing special characters in XPath?

user_17119156 0
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I am trying to exclude three <td> elements from a result set:

<td>
    &#x1F947;
</td>
<td>
    &#x1F948;
</td>
<td>
    &#x1F949;
</td>

I've tried using:

td[not(contains(., '&#x1F948;'))]

For example, but the element I don't want still comes back...

special-characters xpath xml html
2 Answers

In the xpath expression, you need to use the escape conventions of the host language. Using &-escaping is fine if the host is XSLT, but if it’s JavaScript, for example, you’ll need to use backslash escaping.

user_4154480

To avoid the labyrinth of escaping conventions, just use literal Unicode characters themselves, which can be searched and then copy-and-pasted from sites such as Compart:

Char Entity Ref Literal Unicode XPath
&#x1F947; //td[not(contains(.,''))]
&#x1F948; //td[not(contains(.,''))]
&#x1F949; //td[not(contains(.,''))]

Here's a single XPath 2.0+ expression that will select all td elements in the document except those consisting of only the targeted special characters:

//td[not(normalize-space() = ('', '',''))]

In XPath 1.0, you'd have to write out the clauses separately:

//td[not(normalize-space() = '') and 
     not(normalize-space() = '') and 
     not(normalize-space() = '')]

Rearrange via DeMorgan's per taste. Go back to contains() if you truly want to test via substring containment rather than string value equality.

user_2900850
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