Get second element text with XPath?

Question

<span class='python'>
  <a>google</a>
  <a>chrome</a>
</span>

I want to get chrome and have it working like this already.

q = item.findall('.//span[@class="python"]//a')
t = q[1].text # first element = 0

I'd like to combine it into a single XPath expression and just get one item instead of a list.
I tried this but it doesn't work.

t = item.findtext('.//span[@class="python"]//a[2]') # first element = 1

And the actual, not simplified, HTML is like this.

<span class='python'>
  <span>
    <span>
      <img></img>
      <a>google</a>
    </span>
    <a>chrome</a>
  </span>
</span>

Answer 1

I tried this but it doesn't work.

t = item.findtext('.//span[@class="python"]//a[2]')

This is a FAQ about the // abbreviation.

.//a[2] means: Select all a descendents of the current node that are the second a child of their parent. So this may select more than one element or no element -- depending on the concrete XML document.

To put it more simply, the [] operator has higher precedence than //.

If you want just one (the second) of all nodes returned you have to use brackets to force your wanted precedence:

(.//a)[2]

This really selects the second a descendent of the current node.

For the actual expression used in the question, change it to:

(.//span[@class="python"]//a)[2]

or change it to:

(.//span[@class="python"]//a)[2]/text()

Answer 2

I'm not sure what the problem is...

>>> d = """<span class='python'>
...   <a>google</a>
...   <a>chrome</a>
... </span>"""
>>> from lxml import etree
>>> d = etree.HTML(d)
>>> d.xpath('.//span[@class="python"]/a[2]/text()')
['chrome']
>>>