XPath query : select only node with unique child

Question

I wish to select all <span> that have only <br> as children :

<html>
..
<span>
...
</span>
<span>     <!-- I want those ones -->
  <br/>
</span>

How would I select these elements?

Flack · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-10 17:03:12Z

3

Assuming you mean elements with no children except br elements, where br is mandatory:

/html/span
    [br and not(
        *[not(self::br)]
    )]

Meaning: All span elements which have at least one br child and no other elements as children.

answered Mar 10, 2011 at 17:03

Flack

5,8572 gold badges27 silver badges27 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

+1 More correct answer if brs are mandatory. Also, check my "only one br as content" predicate.

@Alejandro. Already checked. May be more efficient by the way.