XPath Axes

Unions

//a | //span

Use | to join two expressions.

Other axes

Axis	Abbrev	Notes
`ancestor`
`ancestor-or-self`
`attribute`	`@`	`@href` is short for `attribute::href`
`child`		`div` is short for `child::div`
`descendant`
`descendant-or-self`	`//`	`//` is short for `/descendant-or-self::node()/`
`namespace`
`self`	`.`	`.` is short for `self::node()`
`parent`	`..`	`..` is short for `parent::node()`
`following`
`following-sibling`
`preceding`
`preceding-sibling`
There are other axes you can use.

Descendant-or-self axis

# both the same
//div//h4
//div/descendant-or-self::h4

// is short for the descendant-or-self:: axis.

# both the same
//ul//[last()]
//ul/descendant-or-self::[last()]

Child axis

# both the same
//ul/li/a
//child::ul/child::li/child::a

child:: is the default axis. This makes //a/b/c work.

# both the same
# this works because `child::li` is truthy 
//ul[li]
//ul[child::li]

# both the same
//ul[count(li) > 2]
//ul[count(child::li) > 2]

Using axes

//ul/li                       # ul > li
//ul/child::li                # ul > li (same)
//ul/following-sibling::li    # ul ~ li
//ul/descendant-or-self::li   # ul li
//ul/ancestor-or-self::li     # $('ul').closest('li')


`//`	`ul`	`/child::`	`li`
Axis	Step	Axis	Step
Steps of an expression are separated by `/`, usually used to pick child nodes. That's not always true: you can specify a different "axis" with `::`.

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