I am working with the following (suboptimal) XML: <pre class="prettyprint"><code><a> <c>X:1 Y:0</c> <c>X:1 Y:0</c> <c>X:2 Y:0</c> <c>X:1 Y:0</c> <c>X:2 Y:0</c> </a> </code></pre> I am trying to use XPath to count the number of <code><c></code> nodes whose contents contain <code>X:1</code>: <pre class="prettyprint"><code>count(contains(/a/b/c, 'X:1')) </code></pre> However, this returns an error rather than returning the expected count of <code>3</code>. What am I doing wrong?

That isn't how you use <code>contains()</code>. Try <pre class="prettyprint"><code>count(/a/b/c[contains(., 'X:1')]) </code></pre>

Using XPath count() with contains()

I am working with the following (suboptimal) XML:

<a>
  <b>
    <c>X:1 Y:0</c>
    <c>X:1 Y:0</c>
    <c>X:2 Y:0</c>
  </b>
  <b>
    <c>X:1 Y:0</c>
    <c>X:2 Y:0</c>
  </b>
</a>

I am trying to use XPath to count the number of <c> nodes whose contents contain X:1:

count(contains(/a/b/c, 'X:1'))

However, this returns an error rather than returning the expected count of 3.

What am I doing wrong?

That isn't how you use contains(). Try

count(/a/b/c[contains(., 'X:1')])

Probably a little bit more efficient (if the property exhibited in the provided XML document isn't accidental):

count(/a/b/c[starts-with(., 'X:1')])