[xml] What is the correct XPath for choosing attributes that contain "foo"?

Given this XML, what XPath returns all elements whose prop attribute contains Foo (the first three nodes):

<bla>
 <a prop="Foo1"/>
 <a prop="Foo2"/>
 <a prop="3Foo"/>
 <a prop="Bar"/>
</bla>

Have you tried something like:

//a[contains(@prop, "Foo")]

I've never used the contains function before but suspect that it should work as advertised...

try this:

//a[contains(@prop,'foo')]

that should work for any "a" tags in the document

John C is the closest, but XPath is case sensitive, so the correct XPath would be:

/bla/a[contains(@prop, 'Foo')]

This XPath will give you all nodes that have attributes containing 'Foo' regardless of node name or attribute name:

//attribute::*[contains(., 'Foo')]/..

Of course, if you're more interested in the contents of the attribute themselves, and not necessarily their parent node, just drop the /..

//attribute::*[contains(., 'Foo')]

For the code above... //*[contains(@prop,'foo')]

/bla/a[contains(@prop, "foo")]

descendant-or-self::*[contains(@prop,'Foo')]

Or:

/bla/a[contains(@prop,'Foo')]

Or:

/bla/a[position() <= 3]

Dissected:

descendant-or-self::

The Axis - search through every node underneath and the node itself. It is often better to say this than //. I have encountered some implementations where // means anywhere (decendant or self of the root node). The other use the default axis.

* or /bla/a

The Tag - a wildcard match, and /bla/a is an absolute path.

[contains(@prop,'Foo')] or [position() <= 3]

The condition within [ ]. @prop is shorthand for attribute::prop, as attribute is another search axis. Alternatively you can select the first 3 by using the position() function.

If you also need to match the content of the link itself, use text():

//a[contains(@href,"/some_link")][text()="Click here"]