PHP: DomDocument & XPath - how to select empty elements?

Question

Assume the following tree:

<root>
 <a></a>
 <b>  </b>
 <c>
 </c>
 <d>Hello world</d>
 <e><f>!!!</f></e>
</root>

I need to be able to select all empty tags, so a, b, and c in the above example. In my scenario, I consider b and c as being empty, despite them having white spaces.

Further, I would not consider e as being empty as it has a child.

How do I select all elements that do no have a child, whose text node is completely empty or comprises only of white spaces?

The following XPath would select a, but miss b and c:

`.//*[not(text())`]

My feeling is that I need to use normalize-space() somehow, but I'm not sure how.

Jared · Accepted Answer · 2022-11-01 03:58:12Z

2

Yes, with XPath1 you gonna need normalize-space. Try this:

.//*[not(*)][not(normalize-space(text()))]

answered Nov 1, 2022 at 3:58

Jared

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2 Comments

StackOverflowNewbie Over a year ago

As it turns out, I do not want to delete all empty tags. Some tags are going to be exempt from this. How would I except, for example, all foo and bar tags?

Jared Over a year ago

Add more conditions like .//*[not(*)][not(normalize-space(text()))][not(name()='foo')][not(name()='bar')]

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