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I am seeing 2 different axis in XPath
Is ancestor[1] is equal to parent? i.e.,
//*[text()='target_text']//ancestor::div[1]
is equal to
//*[text()='target_text']//parent::div
422
An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). Ancestor is "any person from whom one is descended. In law, the person from whom an estate has been inherited."
In XPath, the parent node of the current node selected in the web page is retrieved using the Parent method. It comes in handy when we choose an element and need to utilise Xpath to fetch the parent element. This method can also be used to find out who the parent's parents are and abbreviated as (..).
child:: are your immediate children. descendant:: are your children, and their children, recursively.
The difference between parent:: and ancestor:: axis is conveyed by their names:
A parent is the immediately direct ancestor.
So, for this XML for example,
<a>
<b>
<c>
<d/>
</c>
</b>
</a>
/a/b/c/d/parent::* selects c
/a/b/c/d/ancestor::* selects c, b, and a
So, yes /a/b/c/d/ancestor::*[1] would be the same as /a/b/c/d/parent::*.
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