Automatically generate xpath

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Subject: Automatically generate xpath
From: "Liron" <magilam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:19:42 +0100

Hello all,

I'm looing for some tool (an open source library would be better) that can generate a xpath out of a set of xpaths with some rules like exclusion and inclusion I want to provide an example to what I mean. consider the following html:

<html>
  <body>
     <table>
        <tr><td><font>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text1</b></a>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text2</b></a>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text3</b></a>
        </font></td></tr>
        <tr><td><font>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text4</b></a>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text5</b></a>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text6</b></a>
        </font></td></tr>
      </table>
      <table>
        <tr><td><font>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text7</b></a>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text8</b></a>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text9</b></a>
        </font></td></tr>
        <tr><td><font>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text10</b></a>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text11</b></a>
        <a href="about:blank"><b>Text12</b></a>
        </font></td></tr>
     </table>
  </body>
</html>

I want to provide this tool the following xpaths:
/html/body/table[1]/tr[1]/td/font/a[1]/b/text() (this selects Text1) and
/html/body/table[2]/tr[2]/td/font/a[3]/b/text() (this selects Text12)
and get an output that looks something like:

/html/body/table/tbody/tr/td/font/a[((count(preceding-sibling::a) = 0) and (ancestor::table[1][count(preceding-sibling::table)=0]) and (ancestor::tr[1][count(preceding-sibling::tr)=0])) or ((count(preceding-sibling::a) = 2) and (ancestor::table[1][count(preceding-sibling::table)=1]) and (ancestor::tr[1][count(preceding-sibling::tr)=1]))]/b/text()

which will return me Text1 and Text12 (I have no idea how to make this simpler, if someone know of a way, I'd appreciate it)

I'd also like to have the ability to exclude certain elements from a supplied xpath in a kind of a reversed way.

If anyone knows of a solution or such a tool I'd really appreciate it

Thank you Liron

Current Thread
Automatically generate xpath Liron - 30 Jan 2006 22:15:36 -0000 <= Jay Bryant - 30 Jan 2006 22:57:24 -0000 David Carlisle - 30 Jan 2006 23:02:08 -0000 Liron - 30 Jan 2006 23:51:52 -0000 David Carlisle - 31 Jan 2006 01:12:55 -0000

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RE: selecting into an include, Ingersoll, Utah	Thread	Re: Automatically generate xp, Jay Bryant
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