What is the Xpath expression that involves multiple exclusions? - xpath

Question

Suppose I have html like this:
<div id="wrap">
<div id="content">
<span>some content</span>
<div id="s1">
<p> some text </p>
</div>
<h2 id="sec1">
<span> some text </span>
<p> some text </p>
</h2>
<h2 id="sec1">
<span> some text </span>
<div> some more text </div>
<p> some text </p>
</h2>
<h2 id="sec2">
<span> do not select me some text </span>
<div> do not select me some more text </div>
<p> do not select me some text </p>
</h2>
<h2 id="sec3">
<span> do not select me some text </span>
<div> do not select me some more text </div>
<p> do not select me some text </p>
</h2>
</div>
</div>
What is the XPath expression that selects all text node except those that are under h2 id=sec2 and h2 id=sec3 ?

Answer 1

Literally, "all text node except those that are under h2 id=sec2 and h2 id=sec3":
//text()[not(ancestor::h2[#id='sec2' or #id='sec3'])]
However I suspect that you don't really want that, because you would be losing the <span> and <p> structure. Would it be correct to infer that you want to select all the child elements of the content <div>, except for the <h2>s whose id's are sec2 and sec3? If so,
/div/div[#id = 'content']/*[not(self::h2 and (#id = 'sec2' or #id = 'sec3'))]
But you should also be aware that the text content of the <h2> element is merely the title of a section, not the whole text of the section. So it looks like by putting div's and p's inside an h2, you are not using it the way it is designed.

Answer 2

All elements under an <h2> (except …):
//h2[not(#id = 'sec2' or #id = 'sec3')]/*
All <span>, <div> or <p> elements anywhere (except …):
//*[self::span or self::div or self::p][not(parent::h2/#id = 'sec2' or parent::h2/#id = 'sec3')]
alternative notation (note the parens and the slightly changed predicate):
(//span|//div|//p)[not(parent::h2[#id = 'sec2' or #id = 'sec3'])]