[Answers](https://scrapfly.io/blog)   /  [xpath](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/xpath)   /  [How to count selections in XPath and why?](https://scrapfly.io/blog/answers/how-to-count-selectors-in-xpath-and-why)   # How to count selections in XPath and why?

 by [Bernardas Alisauskas](https://scrapfly.io/blog/author/bernardas) Apr 19, 2023 1 min read [\#xpath](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/xpath) 

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Counting selection can be a very powerful feature in XPath when parsing web scraped HTML pages. Selection count can be used to navigate complex trees where parsing by attributes or values is not possible.

For this `count()` function can be used. See these interactive examples:

<!-- select only paragraphs related to product data but not metadata --> <article> <h2>Data</h2> <!-- this section contains product information --> <p>price: 199</p> <p>year: 2023</p> <h2>Data</h2> <!-- this section contains meta information --> <p>reviews: good</p> <p>updated: yesterday</p> </article> The `count()` function is a great way to navigate bare HTML trees that otherwise might appear unparsable.



 

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