xpath choose first table

Question

I have xpath ``` page.search("//table[@class='campaign']//table") ``` which returns two tables. I need to choose only first table. This line doesn't work: ``` page.search("//table[@class='campaign']//table[1]") ``` How to choose only first table?

Accepted Answer

This bugged me, too. I still don't exactly know why your solution does not work. However, this should:

```
page.search("//table[@class='campaign']/descendant::table[1]")
```

EDIT: As the docs say,

"The location path `//para[1]` does not mean the same as the location path `/descendant::para[1]`. The latter selects the first descendant para element; the former selects all descendant para elements that are the first para children of their parents."

Thanks to your question, I finally understood why this works this way :). So, depending on your structure and needs, this should work.

xpath choose first table

Solution

Problem