xpath expression to remove whitespace

Question

I have this HTML:

 <tr class="even  expanded first>
   <td class="score-time status">
     <a href="/matches/2012/08/02/europe/uefa-cup/">

            16 : 00

     </a>
    </td>        
  </tr>

I want to extract the (16 : 00) string without the extra whitespace. Is this possible?

Answer 1

I. Use this single XPath expression:

translate(normalize-space(/tr/td/a), ' ', '')

Explanation:

1. normalize-space() produces a new string from its argument, in which any leading or trailing white-space (space, tab, NL or CR characters) is deleted and any intermediary white-space is replaced by a single space character.

2. translate() takes the result produced by normalize-space() and produces a new string in which each of the remaining intermediary spaces is replaced by the empty string.

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II. Alternatively:

translate(/tr/td/a, ' 	
&#13', '')