html - XPath to select all elements between two headings?

Question

<h2>Headline 1</h2>
<p>some text</p>
<p>some more text</p>
<ul>
<li>list item 1</li>
<li>list item 2</li>
</ul>
<p>more text</p>
<h2>Headline 2</h2>

I have the above in a webpage and I want to be able to target all elements following the first h2 that contains the text 'Headline 1' up to but NOT including the element h2 that contains the text 'Headline 2'.

I can target the elements like this:

//*[count(preceding-sibling::hr)=1]

but this is not specific to the text contained and so if the page ever changed then the xpath could be pointing to something totally different.

What I would like in sudo code terms is this:

give me all the elements between the header 'Headline 1' and the header 'Headline 2' including 'Headline 1'

Is this at all possible?

Answer 1

This XPath,

//*[    preceding-sibling::h2[. = 'Headline 1'] 
    and following-sibling::h2[. = 'Headline 2']]

will select all elements between h2s with string values of 'Headline 1' and 'Headline 2':

<p>some text</p>
<p>some more text</p>
<ul>
<li>list item 1</li>
<li>list item 2</li>
</ul>
<p>more text</p>

---

Andersson points out in the comments that OP wants the first h2 included in the selection.

Andersson's initial thought would work:

//h2[. = 'Headline 1'] |
//*[    preceding-sibling::h2[. = 'Headline 1'] 
    and following-sibling::h2[. = 'Headline 2']]

Here's another way:

//*[self::h2[. = 'Headline 1']
    or (    preceding-sibling::h2[. = 'Headline 1'] 
        and following-sibling::h2[. = 'Headline 2']]

Or, probably the ideal way:

//h2[. = 'Headline 2']
    /preceding-sibling::*[not(following-sibling::h2[. = 'Heading 1'])]

because it avoids having to specify 'Heading 1' twice.