Xpath 1.0 get previous element value which is not static position - xpath

Question

My html structure as below
<h2>Title 1</h2>
<br>
<br>
<div class="active"></div>
<h2>Title 2</h2>
<br>
<br>
<div class="active"></div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div class="active"></div>
<h2>Title 3</h2>
<br>
<br>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<h2>Title 4</h2>
<br>
<br>
<div></div>
<div class="active"></div>
<div></div>
I would like to get previous first h2's value according to divs which has got active class
My xpath descendants axes for selecting nodes as below
//div[contains(#class, 'active')]
I have tried ancestor and preceding axes of Xpath but not get right result
is this possible with Xpath 1.0
Note: I can use only Xpath version 1.0
Thank you in advance

Answer 1

This XPath expression:
//div[#class='active']/preceding-sibling::h2[1]
which can be read as
"Select the first <h2> element before every active <div> element."
should do the trick for you.

Answer 2

I also vote for the solution suggested by #Slanec - it is good and simple.
But if you want to make sure you are searching for an element within a particular range of elements, you can use an extended XPath:
//div[(preceding-sibling::h2 and following-sibling::h2)
or preceding-sibling::h2[not(following-sibling::h2)]]
[#class='active']
/preceding-sibling::h2[1]
It is just the same, except for here 'div' is searched within the range between 2 'h2' elements (or after the 'h2' in case there is no more 'h2' elements on the page).