creaing xpath expression for following xml

Question

I'm extremely new to XPath, and I'm in the process of creating a XPath expression for retrieving multiple elements for the following xml

<ol>
<li>
    <a data- key="abc(/parent)" value="superval)">Parent</a> 
    <ol>
     <li>
        <a data-key="abc(/parent/1)" data-value="parent-val">Parent/1</a>
       <ol>
       <li>
          <a data-key="abc(/parent/1/1)" data-value="xyz">Parent/1/1</a>
       </li>
       <li>
          <a data-key="abc(/parent/1/2)" data-value="xyz">Parent/1/2</a>
       </li>
      <li>
          <a data-key="abc(/parent/1/3)" data-value="xyz">Parent/1/3</a>
       </li>
       <li>
          <a data-key="abc(/parent/1/4)" data-value="xyz">Parent/1/4</a>
       </li>
    </ol>
   </li>
 </ol>
 </li>
 <li>
  <a data-key="bcd/(parent1)" value="superval">Parent1</a>
 <ol>
     <li>
        <a data-key="bcd(/parent1/1)" data-value="parent-val">Parent1/1</a>
       <ol>
       <li>
          <a data-key="bcd(/parent1/1/1)" data-value="xyz">Parent1/1/1</a>
       </li>
       <li>
          <a data-key="bcd(/parent1/1/2)" data-value="xyz">Parent1/1/2</a>
       </li>
     <li>
          <a data-key="bcd(/parent1/1/3)" data-value="xyz">Parent1/1/3</a>
       </li>
       <li>
          <a data-key="bcd(/parent1/1/4)" data-value="xyz">Parent1/1/4</a>
       </li>
    </ol>
  </li>
 </ol>
</li>
</ol>

The above xml is just an example, and each parent can contain multiple child values. I need to search for elements with data-key values beginning from say ( parent/1/1/1 ) to ( parent/1/1/4 ), and for these keys extract the value of the attribute value associated with it. The data-key values can span different parents as well, like ( parent/1/1/1 ) to ( parent/1/1/2 ).

I need to create XPath expressions for two above scenarios. I've tried using this XPath expression

//*[@data-key='abc(/parent/1/1/1)'] 

but it only gives me a single <a> element, where as I need a range of elements. I'm totally new to XPath, so any help in this regard will be useful.

Many thanks in advance. Asheesh

Answer 1

Try using the contains() function, with the range you're looking for, like this:

//*[contains(@data-key,'abc(/parent/1/1/)')] 

This will give you all nodes with a data-key that has at least that root, such as in your example for (parent/1/1/1) to (parent/1/1/4). Although the xml snippet you provided doesn't contain data-keys of that range, you can edit the slashes/numbers to what you want.