Scrapy xpath select parent element based on text value in subelement and lacking of element

Question

I want to select all elements article that don't contain a span element with class status and where the nested a element contains a href attribute which contains the text "rent.html".

I've managed to get the a element like so:

response.xpath('//article[@class="car"]//a[contains(@href,"rent.html")]')

But reading here and trying to select the first parent element article like so returns "data=0"

response.xpath('//article[@class="car"]//a[contains(@href,"rent.html")]//parent::article and not //article[@class="car"]//span[@class="status"]')

I also tried this.

response.xpath('//article[@class="car"][//a[contains(@href,"rent.html")]/article and not //article[@class="car"]//span[@class="status"]')')

I don't know what the expression is for my use case.

<article class="car">
    <div>
        <div class="container">
            <a href="/34625030/rent.html">
            </a>
        </div>
    </div>
</article>
<article class="car">
    <div>
        <div class="container">
            <a href="/34625230/rent.html">
            </a>
        </div>
    </div>
</article>
<article class="car">
    <div>
        <div class="container">
            <a href="/12325230/buy.html">
            </a>
        </div>
    </div>
</article>  
<article class="car">
    <div>
        <div class="container">
            <a href="/34632230/rent.html">
            </a>
        </div>
    </div>
    <span class="status">Rented</span>
</article>

Prophet · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-25 11:49:57Z

2

This XPath expression will do the work:

"//article[not(.//span[@class='status'])][.//a[contains(@href,'rent.html')]]"

The entire command is:

response.xpath("//article[not(.//span[@class='status'])][.//a[contains(@href,'rent.html')]]")

Explanations:
Translating your requirements into XPath syntax.
"select all elements article" - //article
"that don't contain a span element with class status" - [not(.//span[@class='status'])]
" and where the nested a element contains a href attribute which contains the text "rent.html"" - [.//a[contains(@href,'rent.html')]]
I tested the XPath above on the shared sample XML and it worked properly.

edited Dec 25, 2022 at 11:49

answered Dec 25, 2022 at 11:40

Prophet

33.5k28 gold badges58 silver badges90 bronze badges

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

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Scrapy xpath select parent element based on text value in subelement and lacking of element

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related