How to get H1,H2,H3,... using a single xpath expression

Question

How can I get H1,H2,H3 contents in one single xpath expression?

I know I could do this.

//html/body/h1/text()
//html/body/h2/text()
//html/body/h3/text() 

and so on.

Solution

Use:

/html/body/*[self::h1 or self::h2 or self::h3]/text()

The following expression is incorrect:

//html/body/*[local-name() = "h1"  
           or local-name() = "h2"  
           or local-name() = "h3"]/text()  

because it may select text nodes that are children of unwanted:h1, different:h2, someWeirdNamespace:h3.

Another recommendation: Always avoid using // when the structure of the XML document is statically known. Using // most often results in significant inefficiencies because it causes the complete document (sub)tree roted in the context node to be traversed.

Comments

[Michael Kay]

On the performance question, your mileage may vary. Some products go to great lengths to optimise queries using //x.

[Aswin Sathyan]

I want to get the text inside the p tag. The h tag can be h3 or h4 or h5 <div class="content"><h3>Ingredients:</h3><p >Tomato Purée, Acidity Regulator (Citric Acid)</p> How to get it using a single xpath.?? thanks in advance

[Dimitre Novatchev]

@AswinSathyan, Just ask a separate question at SO.

[ptim]

great! I needed a descendant selector under body to get all headings: /html/body//*[self::h1 or self::h2 or self::h3]/text()