If I have
<div>
<a>
<table>
<tr>
<td value="val">
If I want to select the a containing a td with value="val", how can I do that?
I have tested:
//td[@value="val"]
But I obtain the td node, I want to obtain the a node. How can I achieve that with XPath?
You can use either of the below options.
//td[@value="val"]/ancestor::a
^
td with value val
^
ancestor link
or
Preferred xpath in this case
//a[.//td[@value="val"]]
^
Get me any link which have td with value as val.
or
The below xpath works now, but when there any change to the page eg: if table is moved into a div, then this xpath will break.
//td[@value="val"]/parent::tr/parent::table/parent::a
Personally I prefer the 2nd option atleast in this case as a does not have any specific properties. And ancestor::a will select any link which is ancestor of the td.
The direct answer to your question about how to select a parent in XPath is to use the parent:: axis or the .. abbreviation. However, often, as in your case, you can select the targeted "parent" directly via a predicate on a descendant rather than selecting the descendant and then having to traverse back up to the parent. For example, ...
This XPath,
//a[.//td/@value = "val"]
will select all a elements with a td descendant with a @value attribute value equal to "val".
Update: I wasn't paying attention and now see that @suppurtui already provided the above XPath as an option. I'll leave this up for any benefit provided by my explanation, but please upvote @supputuri's answer (as I have just done). Thanks.