How to Retrieve HTML Elements Based on Their Inner Text Using XPath?

Getting HTML Elements by Inner Text

In web development, it often becomes necessary to manipulate or access specific HTML elements based on the text they contain. This is particularly useful for automating UI testing, data scraping, and content analysis.

One way to retrieve HTML elements by their inner text is through the powerful XPath language. XPath allows you to query an HTML document using a combination of node selectors and predicates.

Selecting Element by Exact Text

To get an HTML element based on its exact inner text, you can use the following XPath expression:

//elementName[text()='innerText']

For instance, to get the a tag that contains the text "SearchingText":

var xpath = "//a[text()='SearchingText']";
var matchingElement = document.evaluate(xpath, document, null, XPathResult.FIRST_ORDERED_NODE_TYPE, null).singleNodeValue;

Selecting Element Containing Text

Alternatively, you can search for elements that contain specific text, regardless of whether it's an exact match, using the following XPath expression:

//elementName[contains(text(), 'searchText')]

For example, to get all a tags that contain the text "Searching":

var xpath = "//a[contains(text(),'Searching')]";

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