Modify XPath to return second of two values

Question

I have an XPath that returns two items. I want to modify it so that it returns only the second, or the last if there are more than 2.

//a[@rel='next']

I tried

//a[@rel='next'][2]

but that doesn't return anything at all. How can I rewrite the xpath so I get only the 2nd link?

Answer 1

Found the answer in XPATH : finding an attribute node (and only one)

In my case the right XPath would be

(//a[@rel='next'])[last()]

---

EDIT (by Tomalak) - Explanation:

This selects all a[@rel='next'] nodes, and takes the last of the entire set:

(//a[@rel='next'])[last()]

This selects all a[@rel='next'] nodes that are the respective last a[@rel='next'] of the parent context each of them is in:

//a[@rel='next'][last()]   equivalent:   //a[@rel='next' and position()=last()]

This selects all a[@rel='next'] nodes that are the second a[@rel='next'] of the parent context each of them is in (in your case, each parent context had only one a[@rel='next'], that's why you did not get anything back):

//a[@rel='next'][2]        equivalent:   //a[@rel='next' and position()=2]

For the sake of completeness: This selects all a nodes that are the last of the parent context each of them is in, and of them only those that have @rel='next' (XPath predicates are applied from left to right!):

//a[last()][@rel='next']   NOT equiv!:   //a[position()=last() and @rel='next']