How to Achieve Case-Insensitive Searching in XPath Using the contains() Function?

Case-Insensitive XPath contains() Function

In XPath, the contains() function is case-sensitive. However, there are ways to work around this limitation.

Method 1: Translate Characters

This method involves translating characters to lowercase or uppercase before checking for the substring:

/html/body//text()[
  contains(
    translate(., 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'),
    'test'
  )
]

This converts all uppercase letters in the text to lowercase before checking for the substring "test."

Method 2: Dynamic XPath Expression

Using a scripting language like JavaScript, you can construct a dynamic XPath expression that handles case insensitivity:

<code class="javascript">function xpathPrepare(xpath, searchString) {
  return xpath.replace("$u", searchString.toUpperCase())
              .replace("$l", searchString.toLowerCase())
              .replace("$s", searchString.toLowerCase());
}

xp = xpathPrepare("//text()[contains(translate(., '$u', '$l'), '$s')]", "Test");</code>

This replaces placeholders in the XPath expression with uppercase, lowercase, and lowercase versions of the search string.

Additional Considerations

• Both methods assume the alphabet is known.
• If element text can contain single quotes, escape them to prevent XPath syntax errors.
• If using Method 2, handle escaped quotes in the search string.

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