XPath Selecting all elements which doesn't have a particular element in the ancestor list

Question

<Root>
  <SomeElement>
    ...
    <Wanted>.....</Wanted>
    <UnWanted>
      <Wanted>.....</Wanted>
    </UnWanted>
    <Wanted>.....</Wanted>
    ...
  </SomeElement>
</Root>

I want to select the "Wanted" Elements which are inside "SomeElement" at ANY level but not childs of "UnWanted" Element.

With the XPath /Root/SomeElement//Wanted I'm not able to exclude the childs of UnWanted.

Answer 1

You could try

/Root/SomeElement//Wanted[not(ancestor::UnWanted)]

This would exclude all Wanted elements that are a child, grandchild, etc. (at any level) of an UnWanted element. If you only want to exclude Wanted elements that are a direct child of UnWanted (but still include those that are grandchildren, etc.) then change ancestor:: to parent::

/Root/SomeElement//Wanted[not(parent::UnWanted)]