How to select a sibling's child node using XPath in Python?

Question

I'm using Python and lxml. My xml file:

<Example>
    <Path>
        <Some.Node>
            // ...
        </Some.Node>
        <Some.Node>
            <Known.Node KnownAttribute="123"/>
            <Some.Stuff>
                <Nothing.Important>Bla</Nothing.Important>
            </Some.Stuff>
            <Relevant.Node>
                <Property>
                    <Name>Some</Name>
                    <Value>True</Value>
                </Property>
                <Property>
                    <Name>Known.Name</Name>
                    <Value>Desired Value</Value>
                </Property>
                <Property>
                    <Name>Some.Other</Name>
                    <Value>Yes</Value>
                </Property>
                // ...
            </Relevant.Node>
            // ...
        </Some.Node>
        <Some.Node>
            // ...
        </Some.Node>
    </Path>
</Example>

There are multiple <Some.Node> nodes and I'm only interested in the one with KnownAttribute equal to 123. This part I got:

query = "//Known.Node[@KnownAttribute='%s']" % attribute_value

However, I need to get the value of <Relevant.Node>/<Property>/<Value> where <Name> has value Known.Name.

This was my best try but it didn't work:

root = etree.parse(xml_file).getroot()
query = "//Known.Node[@KnownAttribute='%s']/..//Property[Name='Known.Name']/Value" % attribute_value
result = root.xpath(query)
print(result[0].text)

It should print, of course, Desired Value but it just returns empty value/whitespace.

How can I get the value I need?

James · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-30 12:56:11Z

2

You are really close. You can ask for the text of the node in the xpath expression.

query = "//Known.Node[@KnownAttribute='%s']/..//" % attribute_value
query += "Property[Name='Known.Name']/Value/text()" 
result = root.xpath(query)
print(result[0])
# prints:
Desired Value

answered May 30, 2018 at 12:56

James

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