XPath query to get nth instance of an element

Question

There is an HTML file  whose contents I do not control  that has several input elements all with the same fixed id attribute of  search query   The contents of the file can change  but I know that I always want to get the second input element with the id attribute  search query    I need an XPath expression to do this  I tried   input  id  search query   2  but that does not work  Here is an example XML string where this query failed    lt div gt     lt form gt       lt input id  search query    gt      lt  form gt   lt  div gt    lt div gt     lt form gt       lt input id  search query    gt     lt  form gt   lt  div gt    lt div gt     lt form gt       lt input id  search query    gt     lt  form gt   lt  div gt    Keep in mind that that the above is merely an example and the other HTML code can be quite different and the input elements can appear anywhere with no consistent document structure  except that I am guaranteed there will always be at least two input elements with an id attribute of  search query     What is the correct XPath expression

User · Answer

This seems to work    descendant  input  id  search query   2    I go this from  XSLT 2 0 and XPath 2 0 Programmer s Reference  4th Edition  by Michael Kay    There is also a note in the  Abbreviated Syntax  section of the XML Path Language specification http   www w3 org TR xpath  path-abbrev that provided a clue

User · Answer

This is a FAQ     somexpression  N   means  Find every node selected by   somexpression that is the  Nth child of its parent    What you want is      input  id  search query    2    Remember   The    operator has higher precedence  priority  than the    abbreviation

[xml] XPath query to get nth instance of an element

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