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phpjqueryxpathdomxpath

DOMXPath Query To Extract Specific li Element

I'm trying to extract a list element based on its child's content. The li has an anchor tag with a title of 'something something' (space included).

Example:

<li><a href="#" title="something something"></a></li>

What would the query look like? Thanks!

Solution

  • To retrieve an element with its attribute, use this XPath query:

    /html/body/li/a[@title='something something']

    That will get any a tag with a title attribute with a value of something something that's a child of a li tag (that's inside html and body tag, it's better/faster if you know the full structure before hand).

    <?php
$html = '<li><a href="#" title="something something">test</a></li>';
$html .= '<li><a href="#" title="something something2">test2</a></li>';
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadHTML($html);
$xpath = new DOMXPath($doc);
$lis = $xpath->query("/html/body/li/a[@title='something something']");
foreach ($lis as $li) {
    var_dump($li->nodeValue);
}

    Result

    /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/trello/up.php:9:string 'test' (length=4)

    Demo