Using Libraries to Convert HTML to XPath

[ProfessorManhattan]

Hey, this is not an issue but I have been unable to understand why there are not many reputable packages that advertise the ability to turn CSS/HTML to XPaths. Can I use this library to convert CSS to an XPath?

[zhengchun]

No, this is an XPath package for XML/HTML/JSONdocuments query using XML query syntax. CSS Selector is another query syntax, there are cannot work together.

[ProfessorManhattan]

@zhengchun -- shouldn't it be possible to convert a CSS selector to an XPath as long as the CSS selector only returns one element?

[zhengchun]

You can do this in manually If you known CSS selector syntax and XPath syntax.

For example:

• CSS selector: a>img, is equivalent to XPath: //a/img
• CSS selector: a[href], is equivalent to XPath: //a[@href]
• CSS Selectoe: .class_name, is equivalent to XPath: [class='class_name']

[ProfessorManhattan]

Hey @zhengchun --- thanks but if I do anything manually then my computer becomes the boss -- trying to ensure the opposite. There are a few libraries, the most popular of which is in PHP:

https://github.com/symfony/css-selector

And here's one in Node.js (with a lot less stars):

https://github.com/css2xpath/css2xpath

[zhengchun]

https://github.com/PuerkitoBio/goquery