Xpath on HTML, finding conditional match

Question

I have an HTML doc, and am trying to extract hrefs for certain table rows. Rendered, the table has several columns. Every name is a hyperlink, but I am trying to capture hyperlinks for names that have a blank value in a the fourth column. That is because the fourth column contains the termination date, and I am interested only in active (non-terminated) employees.

Here is a subset of the HTML response:

<tr id="r6" >                                    
<td>
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646822&STYPE=ELNAME&QRY=a">111-11-1111</a>
</td>
<td >
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646822&STYPE=ELNAME&QRY=a">Lastname</a>
</td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" >
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646822&STYPE=ELNAME&QRY=a">Firstname</a>
</td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" >
   &nbsp;
</td>
<td>
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646822&STYPE=ELNAME&QRY=a">743</a>
</td>
</tr>

<tr id="r7" >                                    
<td>
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646782&STYPE=ELNAME&QRY=a">222-22-2222</a>
</td>
<td >
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646782&STYPE=ELNAME&QRY=a">Ignore</a>
</td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" >
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646782&STYPE=ELNAME&QRY=a">This</a>
</td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" >
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646782&STYPE=ELNAME&QRY=a">7/12/2010</a>
</td>
<td>
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646782&STYPE=ELNAME&QRY=a">1070</a>
</td>
</tr>

The first table row above (id=r6) is missing a date field in column 4, which is present in the second one. So I am trying to extract the href of the first but not the second. In other words, "give me the first href of each table row which has   in column 4."

This in FirePath gives me all the hrefs in the table: //table[@id="searchResults"]//@href

Thanks

Mathias Müller · Answer 1 · 2015-02-10T21:20:14.770

The answer depends on the environment you are using XPath in. Specifically, it depends on how non-breaking spaces are encoded. In XSLT, for example, the expression would look like

//tr[contains(td[4],'&#160;')]/td[1]/a/@href

Input (slightly modified)

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE root [
    <!ENTITY nbsp "&#160;">
]>
<root>
<tr id="r6" >                                    
<td>
   <a href="YES">111-11-1111</a>
</td>
<td >
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646822STYPE=ELNAMEQRY=a">Lastname</a>
</td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" >
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646822STYPE=ELNAMEQRY=a">Firstname</a>
</td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" >
   &nbsp;
</td>
<td>
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646822STYPE=ELNAMEQRY=a">743</a>
</td>
</tr>

<tr id="r7" >                                    
<td>
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646782STYPE=ELNAMEQRY=a">222-22-2222</a>
</td>
<td >
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646782STYPE=ELNAMEQRY=a">Ignore</a>
</td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" >
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646782STYPE=ELNAMEQRY=a">This</a>
</td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" >
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646782STYPE=ELNAMEQRY=a">7/12/2010</a>
</td>
<td>
   <a href="benefits.asp?SK=177646782STYPE=ELNAMEQRY=a">1070</a>
</td>
</tr>
</root>

Stylesheet

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<xsl:transform xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="2.0">
    <xsl:output method="text" omit-xml-declaration="yes" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes" />

    <xsl:template match="/">
          <xsl:value-of select="//tr[contains(td[4],'&#160;')]/td[1]/a/@href"/>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:transform>

Output

YES

Xpath on HTML, finding conditional match

1 Answers1