Question

How can I create an XPath expression that works like a regex would, so that it matches instances of next? Here’s an example of what I want using regex syntax:

string = 'blah_blah next '

xpath="//a[contains(text(),'.*?next.*')]");

I’m new to XPath, and searching through tutorials didn’t help me.

Answer 1

In XPath 1.0, this expression does what you want:

//a[contains(.,'next')]

From http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath/#section-String-Functions

Function: boolean contains(string,
string)

The contains function returns true if
the first argument string contains the
second argument string, and otherwise
returns false.

For more complex matching ussing RegExp you need a XPath 2.0 processor having this built-in functions: match(), replace(), tokenize(), etc.