XPath for selecting all text nodes

Question

I'm writing a JavaScript function that can be used to replace text with HTML code, but to do this I need to be able to access text in text node form. The following XPath selects all div tags in a document:

//div

The following XPath selects all elements with the attribute class assigned the value myclass:

//*[@class="myclass"]

The following selects all of the text (not text nodes) that occurs at any level underneath the element with the ID comments:

//*[@id="comments"]//text()

What is an XPath that can be used to select all text nodes under any element? So, say I want to replace all the non-comment occurrences of the string Hebert and I need all of the text nodes so I can scan through them for that string. Would it use text() in the query?

Element nodes have text nodes in it, that you can manipulate. Are you referring to Element nodes that only have text and no child Element nodes in it? — Balazs Vago, Mar 10 '17 at 16:04
***You really ought to [accept](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/5234/234215) some of the fine answers you've received to the 75 questions you've asked.*** Asking **75 questions and accepting 0 of the fine answers you've received** (and only ever upvoting twice in 4 years) shows a lack of appreciation for the help you've received and failure to help future readers. It's not too late to fix this situation. You should do so now. — kjhughes, Mar 11 '17 at 15:51

score 9 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

Two options:

To select all text nodes whose string value contains the substring "Herbert":
```
//text()[contains(.,'Herbert')]
```
To select all text nodes whose string value is "Herbert":
```
//text()[.='Herbert']
```

Note that your comment,

The following selects all of the text (not text nodes)

regarding the XPath, //text(), is incorrect. The node test text() selects text nodes. In a string context, it will return the string-value of the text node, but text() alone most certainly selects actual text nodes.

See also Testing text() nodes vs string values in XPath

XPath for selecting all text nodes

1 Answers1