Help extracting text from HTML table using xpath

Question

I'm trying to pull the text between the nobr tags.

This is part of the table:

       <table class="report-main-table dirLTR NormalTxt" width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">

<thead>

<tr>

<td class="report-data-title-cell report-data-column-odd"><nobr><b>&#1505;&#1492;"&#1499; &#1506;&#1500;&#1493;&#1514; &#1489;&#1513;"&#1495;</b></nobr></td><td class="report-data-title-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr><b>&#1497;&#1506;&#1491; &#1492;&#1513;&#1497;&#1495;&#1492;</b></nobr></td><td class="report-data-title-cell report-data-column-odd"><nobr><b>&#1505;&#1493;&#1490; &#1513;&#1497;&#1495;&#1492;</b></nobr></td><td class="report-data-title-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr><b>&#1505;&#1492;"&#1499; &#1494;&#1502;&#1503; &#1488;&#1493;&#1497;&#1512; &#1500;&#1495;&#1497;&#1493;&#1489;</b></nobr></td><td class="report-data-title-cell report-data-column-odd"><nobr><b>&#1492;&#1502;&#1505;&#1508;&#1512; &#1513;&#1495;&#1493;&#1497;&#1490;</b></nobr></td><td class="report-data-title-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr><b>&#1513;&#1506;&#1514; &#1513;&#1497;&#1495;&#1492;</b></nobr></td><td class="report-data-title-cell report-data-column-odd"><nobr><b>&#1514;&#1488;&#1512;&#1497;&#1498; &#1513;&#1497;&#1495;&#1492;</b></nobr></td>

</tr>

</thead>

<tr class="report-data-row-even">

<td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr>0.0285</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-odd"><nobr>&#1508;&#1512;&#1496;&#1504;&#1512;</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr>SMS</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-odd"><nobr>1</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr>054-2570130</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-odd"><nobr>00:14:09</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr>27/09/2010</nobr></td>

</tr>

<tr class="report-data-row-odd">

<td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr>0.0000</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-odd"><nobr>&#1505;&#1500;&#1511;&#1493;&#1501;</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr>SMS</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-odd"><nobr>1</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr>052-3669127</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-odd"><nobr>00:47:25</nobr></td><td class="NormalTxt report-data-cell report-data-column-even"><nobr>27/09/2010</nobr></td>

</tr>

I was trying this xpath expression://table/tr/td/nobr/, but this did not work.

What is the correct xpath expression?

Thanks

Answer 1

Try //table//td/nobr.

EDIT: As requested, here's the expression logic.

We're looking for the inner text of the nobr elements (nobr)

• that are inside table cells (td/nobr),
• that are descendants of all tables in the document (//table//td/nobr: here we skip the tr elements and the thead, tbody and tfoot elements that may occur between the table and td elements.

Answer 2

Use:

//nobr

This may be more efficient than:

//table//td/nobr

because the // abbreviation causes a complete traversal of the tree rooted in the current node and we have the // abbreviation only once in the former expression but twice in the latter expression.

Always try to avoid using the // abbreviation, when you know the structure of the XML document.