XPath match elements, which doesn't contain specified descendant

Question

I have a XML file with multiple level structure (it is a directory structure with files, thus there are <directory name="..."> and <file name="..."> elements)

and I want to select empty directories with XPath, but I don't know, how to select nodes, which doesn't have some descendants. I can match the ns:directory[not(ns:file)] but it is only the first level of emtpy directories and I dont want to do anything like ns:directory[not(ns:file)]|ns:directory[ns:directory[not(ns:file)]]|...

Could someone please hint, how to do this?

If you search for "descendant" in the xpath spec you'll see that there is a descendant:: axis that will help you here. — Ian Roberts
– Ian Roberts, Commented Feb 18, 2014 at 10:17

Tomalak · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-18 09:52:17Z

1

Easy.

//ns:directory[not(.//ns:file)]

answered Feb 18, 2014 at 9:52

Tomalak

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Comments

rumplestiltzkin · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-19 07:46:28Z

The answer above will exclude directories that only contain directories. If that's what you want, fine. If you're looking for directories that are completely empty, try this:

//ns:directory[not(ns:file|ns:directory)]

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