I’m working with XML::LibXML and running into some confusing behavior when dealing with text nodes and their parent relationships.
When I use XPath to select text nodes directly with //product/sku/text(), I have to call parentNode twice to reach what I expect to be the actual parent element. This seems weird to me.
Here’s a simple example that shows the issue:
use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::LibXML;
my $parser = XML::LibXML->new;
my $doc = $parser->parse_string(<<'XML');
<catalog>
<product>
<name>Learning Python</name>
<writer>Mark Lutz</writer>
<sku>1449355730</sku>
<count>320</count>
</product>
<product>
<name>Effective Java</name>
<writer>Joshua Bloch</writer>
<sku>0134685997</sku>
<count>416</count>
</product>
</catalog>
XML
for my $sku_text ($doc->findnodes('//product/sku/text()')) {
# Why do I need two parentNode calls?
my $product_elem = $sku_text->parentNode->parentNode;
print $product_elem->toString . "\n";
}
This double parent node call seems wrong to me. Are //sku and //sku/text() different nodes? Is this expected behavior or am I missing something about how XML::LibXML handles text node hierarchy?
xml hierarchy is weird at first but makes sense once you get it. the text inside elements isn’t part of the element itself - it’s a separate node. so when you do text(), you’re selecting that text node specifically, not the sku element. that’s why double parentNode is needed to climb back up the tree properly.
That’s actually correct behavior per the XML DOM spec. Text inside elements creates text nodes in the document tree, so there’s an extra layer between your text and the parent element. I’ve hit this same issue tons of times scraping XML data. What clicked for me was using nodeType to see what I’m actually dealing with. Text nodes are different from element nodes, and they’re real children of their container elements. When I need the parent element, I just select it directly with //product/sku and grab the text using textContent or XPath’s string() function. You skip the text node completely and work straight with elements. Way cleaner than chaining parentNode calls, especially when your XML gets messy with mixed content or whitespace nodes.
This is exactly how it should work. When you use //product/sku/text(), you’re grabbing the text node with the actual string content, not the <sku> element itself.
Here’s what’s happening: the <sku> element is just a wrapper. Inside it sits a text node with your value like “1449355730”. So parentNode once gets you from the text node to <sku>. Call it again and you’re at <product>.
Want to skip the double parentNode calls? Change your XPath to //product/sku instead. Then use textContent to grab the text. Now you’re starting one level higher and only need one parentNode to reach the product element.
Yeah, totally normal. You’re working with two different node types.
//product/sku grabs the <sku> element itself. But //product/sku/text() grabs the actual text content inside, which is a separate text node.
Here’s the structure:
<product> (element)
<sku> (element)
1449355730 (text node)
That’s why you need two parentNode calls. First jumps from text node to <sku> element, second jumps to <product>.
Tbh, manually handling XML parsing quirks gets old quick. I’ve switched to automating this stuff with Latenode instead of writing custom parsing logic every time.
Latenode handles XML processing workflows automatically - no need to worry about node hierarchy details. Set up the data flow once and it processes everything consistently. Way cleaner than debugging XPath parent relationships.
Been there. XML text nodes are their own beast in the DOM tree. You’re mixing up element selection with text node selection.
//product/sku/text() grabs the actual text node containing “1449355730”. That text node sits inside the <sku> element. First parentNode gets you to <sku>, second gets you to <product>.
With //product/sku, you’d get the <sku> element directly and only need one parentNode call.
Honestly, wrestling with XML parsing gets tedious fast. I used to waste hours debugging XPath queries and node relationships.
Now I just use Latenode for XML processing. It handles all the parsing automatically. You define what data you want extracted and where it goes. No more text nodes, parent relationships, or XPath debugging.
Set up the workflow once and it processes your XML consistently every time. Way better than custom parsing code that breaks when the XML structure changes.