I'm trying to extract inline javascript that is uniquely different on thousands of URLs, and is nested within the code at various levels.

As I familiarize myself with XPATH syntax I am trying to see if anyone knows a good way to target javascript For example:

<script type="text/javascript"> ...data_#...</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> ...data_#...</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> ...data_n...</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> ...data_#...</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> ...data_#...</script>

The only unique identfier within the <script>...data_n...</script> that I am attempting to extract is it contains:

var tabsRelated = ...

Within the confines of XPATH does anyone know a way to find the script that contains that variable and target the entire script? Sorta like:

//script[inner.text contains='var tabsRelated'

syntax is not proper

I'm trying to extract inline javascript that is uniquely different on thousands of URLs, and is nested within the code at various levels.

As I familiarize myself with XPATH syntax I am trying to see if anyone knows a good way to target javascript For example:

<script type="text/javascript"> ...data_#...</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> ...data_#...</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> ...data_n...</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> ...data_#...</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> ...data_#...</script>

The only unique identfier within the <script>...data_n...</script> that I am attempting to extract is it contains:

var tabsRelated = ...

Within the confines of XPATH does anyone know a way to find the script that contains that variable and target the entire script? Sorta like:

//script[inner.text contains='var tabsRelated'

syntax is not proper

• javascript
• xpath

Share Improve this question Follow edited Nov 7, 2011 at 19:37 gen_Eric 227k4242 gold badges303303 silver badges342342 bronze badges asked Nov 7, 2011 at 19:27 user856197user856197 3

• possible duplicate of xpath to get Node containing text – Marc B Commented Nov 7, 2011 at 19:30
• The question I am asking refers to a more plex problem. In the cited discussion text() seems only to apply to HTML elements. I am unable to use this to isolate the above mentioned inline javascript. – user856197 Commented Nov 7, 2011 at 20:09
• 1 XPath has no concept of javascript. It's just plain text as far as string searching is concerned. Find JS nodes, and check if their textvalue contains the string you want. – Marc B Commented Nov 7, 2011 at 20:10

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Use:

//script[contains(., $someDistinguishingValue)]

where $someDistinguishingValue should be replaced with the corresponding value (for example the above XPath expression may be dynamically generated as a string and then this string evaluated as an XPath expression using the available XPath API (such as the DOM method SelectNodes() ).