Question

I have a html structure like this..

<div id="divid"> 
<ul id="ulid">
<li style="margin-left: 8px">
        <strong>books</strong>
</li>
<li style="margin-left: 6px">
        <a hre="">
        <span id="spanid">first line</span></a>
</li> 
<li style="margin-left: 6px">
        <a hre="">
        <span id="spanid">2nd line</span></a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>

i am parsing this html part and using xpath query

$xpath->query('//div[@id="divid"]/ul[@id="ulid"]/li/a');

and the output i want is

first line
2nd line

as for as i understand, my xpath query is okay if “strong” tag was not present in first “li” tag.

Note that first ‘li’ tag has strong tag while all other li tags have span tag in them
now i want to EXCLUDED the ‘li’ tag (which consists ‘strong’ tag in it) from my xpath query so that i can get the values of tag below the anchor tag in li tag
how can i modify the xpath query to make it possible? any guideline?

the original code on which i was working was…

<ul data-typeid="n" id="ref_1000">

     <li style="margin-left: -18px;">
                                            <a href="/s/ref=sr_ex_n_0?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Ahow+to+grow+tomatoes&amp;sort=salesrank&amp;keywords=how+to+grow+tomatoes&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1327692925">‹ <span class="expand">Any Department</span></a>
                                            </li>
                                    <li style="margin-left: 8px;">
                                            <strong>Books</strong>
                                        </li>
                                    <li style="margin-left: 6px;">

                               <a href="/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?rh=k%3Ahow+to+grow+tomatoes%2Cn%3A283155%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A618073011%2Cn%3A%211000%2Cn%3A48&amp;bbn=1000&amp;sort=salesrank&amp;keywords=how+to+grow+tomatoes&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1327692925&amp;rnid=1000">
                        <span class="refinementLink">Crafts, Hobbies &amp; Home</span><span class="narrowValue"> (19)</span>
                                </a>
                    </li>
            <li style="margin-left: 6px;">
                               <a href="/s/ref=sr_nr_n_1?rh=k%3Ahow+to+grow+tomatoes%2Cn%3A283155%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A618073011%2Cn%3A%211000%2Cn%3A10&amp;bbn=1000&amp;sort=salesrank&amp;keywords=how+to+grow+tomatoes&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1327692925&amp;rnid=1000">
                        <span class="refinementLink">Health, Fitness &amp; Dieting</span><span class="narrowValue"> (3)</span>

                                </a>
                    </li>
            <li style="margin-left: 6px;">
                               <a href="/s/ref=sr_nr_n_2?rh=k%3Ahow+to+grow+tomatoes%2Cn%3A283155%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A618073011%2Cn%3A%211000%2Cn%3A6&amp;bbn=1000&amp;sort=salesrank&amp;keywords=how+to+grow+tomatoes&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1327692925&amp;rnid=1000">
                        <span class="refinementLink">Cookbooks, Food &amp; Wine</span><span class="narrowValue"> (2)</span>
                                </a>
                    </li>

            </ul>

and i want to extract

Crafts, Hobbies & Home etc closed in span tag

Answer 1

Taking the provided expression at face value — i.e. ignoring any contradictions between the expression and your description of it — you can use the following expression to exclude li elements that contain a strong child:

//div[@id="divid"]/ul[@id="ulid"]/li[not(strong)]/a