XPath Navigation

Web Scraping in Python

Thomas Laetsch

Data Scientist, NYU

Slashes and Brackets

• Single forward slash / looks forward one generation
• Double forward slash // looks forward all future generations
• Square brackets [] help narrow in on specific elements

To Bracket or not to Bracket

xpath = '/html/body'

xpath = '/html[1]/body[1]'

• Give the same selection

A Body of P

xpath = '/html/body/p'

The Birds and the Ps

xpath = '/html/body/div/p'

xpath = '/html/body/div/p[2]'

Double Slashing the Brackets

xpath = '//p'

xpath = '//p[1]'

The Wildcard

xpath = '/html/body/*'

• The asterisks * is the "wildcard"

Xposé

Web Scraping in Python