Question

I have the following xml:

...
    <chapter>
        <start_time>00:01:04</start_time>
    </chapter>  
    <chapter>
        <start_time>00:01:05</start_time>
    </chapter>  
...

Currently, to get the start_times I am doing:

start_times = node.xpath("//t:start_time/text()", 
                   namespaces={'t':'http://example.com/namespace'})

However, I am also getting start_times from non-chapter elements:

[00:00:01, 00:00:02, 00:01:04, 00:01:05]

In addition, for some reason suing //t:chapter/start_time returns an empty result.

How would I get only those start_times that have a parent element of chapter?

Answer 1

Make your selector more specific like this:

start_times = node.xpath("//t:chapter/start_time/text()", 
                   namespaces={'t':'http://example.com/namespace'})