How to use "not" in XPath?

Question

I want to write something of the sort:

//a[not contains(@id, 'xx')]

(meaning all the links that there 'id' attribute doesn't contain the string 'xx')

I can't find the right syntax.

score 255 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 01 '21 at 19:44

255

not() is a function in XPath (as opposed to an operator), so

//a[not(contains(@id, 'xx'))]

edited Apr 01 '21 at 19:44

Syscall

answered Oct 11 '09 at 15:45

James Sulak

is there a way to say grab all the
tags but not the tag inside them? imagine something like
text text TEXTtext text
. i want all the text in p but not the TEXT in a. is that possible with XPath? This isn't exactly my case, it's a little more complicated than that but its more or less the same.
– Ali Sep 03 '19 at 13:07

Abdelhameed Mahmoud · Answer 2 · 2012-05-17T12:16:03.610

41

you can use not(expression) function

or

expression != true()

edited May 17 '12 at 12:16

answered Jan 05 '12 at 13:32

Harun ERGUL · Answer 3 · 2017-03-17T14:59:42.847

17

None of these answers worked for me for python. I solved by this

a[not(@id='XX')]

Also you can use or condition in your xpath by | operator. Such as

a[not(@id='XX')]|a[not(@class='YY')]

Sometimes we want element which has no class. So you can do like

a[not(@class)]

edited Mar 17 '17 at 14:59

answered Mar 17 '17 at 14:48

Harun ERGUL

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 04 '19 at 06:13

1

Use boolean function like below:

//a[(contains(@id, 'xx'))=false]

answered Nov 04 '19 at 06:13

frianH

4 Answers4