What is the best way to focus on the N elements contained within another element?

Here is an example html input:

<div class="grid--item user-info  user-hover">
   <div class="user-gravatar48">
      <a href="/users/22656/jon-skeet">
         <div class="gravatar-wrapper-48"><img src="https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/6d8ebb117e8d83d74ea95fbdd0f87e13?s=96&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=PG" alt="Jon Skeet's user avatar" width="48" height="48" class="bar-sm"></div>
      </a>
   </div>
   <div class="user-details">
      <a href="/users/22656/jon-skeet">Jon Skeet</a>
      <span class="user-location">Reading, United Kingdom</span>
      <div class="-flair">
         <span class="reputation-score" title="reputation score 1,440,518" dir="ltr">1.4m</span><span title="873 gold badges" aria-hidden="true"><span class="badge1"></span><span class="badgecount">873</span></span><span class="v-visible-sr">873 gold badges</span><span title="9172 silver badges" aria-hidden="true"><span class="badge2"></span><span class="badgecount">9172</span></span><span class="v-visible-sr">9172 silver badges</span><span title="9224 bronze badges" aria-hidden="true"><span class="badge3"></span><span class="badgecount">9224</span></span><span class="v-visible-sr">9224 bronze badges</span>
      </div>
   </div>
   <div class="user-tags">
      <a href="/questions/tagged/c%23">c#</a>, <a href="/questions/tagged/java">java</a>, <a href="/questions/tagged/.net">.net</a>
   </div>
</div>

I am specifically looking for the first two span elements directly under the div with the class class="user-details".

I have attempted to select them using a CSS selector, but it returns more results than anticipated: https://try.jsoup.org/~orgt_meWno3AxzO0GzxMBldEhIk

My Python implementation also yields the same issue:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

soup = BeautifulSoup(html, 'html.parser')

soup.select('div.user-details span:nth-child(-n+2)')

# [<span class="user-location">Reading, United Kingdom</span>,
#  <span class="reputation-score" dir="ltr" title="reputation score 1,440,518">1.4m</span>,
#  <span aria-hidden="true" title="873 gold badges"><span class="badge1"></span><span class="badgecount">873</span></span>,
#  <span class="badge1"></span>,
#  <span class="badgecount">873</span>,
#  <span class="badge2"></span>,
#  <span class="badgecount">9172</span>,
#  <span class="badge3"></span>,
#  <span class="badgecount">9224</span>]

The expected output should only contain these elements:

# [<span class="user-location">Reading, United Kingdom</span>,
#  <span class="reputation-score" dir="ltr" title="reputation score 1,440,518">1.4m</span>]

If possible, can you help me identify any issues in my CSS selector and suggest corrections?

My query pertains more to CSS selectors rather than alternative solutions.

htmlcssbeautifulsoupcss-selectors

Answer №1

Examining your HTML code, I have reformatted it to highlight the structure of the relevant section:

<div class="user-details">

  <a href="/users/22656/jon-skeet">Jon Skeet</a>

  <span class="user-location">Reading, United Kingdom</span>

  <div class="-flair">
    <span class="reputation-score" title="reputation score 1,440,518" dir="ltr">1.4m</span>
    <span title="873 gold badges" aria-hidden="true">
      <span class="badge1"></span>
      <span class="badgecount">873</span>
    </span>
    <span class="v-visible-sr">873 gold badges</span>
    <span title="9172 silver badges" aria-hidden="true">
      <span class="badge2"></span>
      <span class="badgecount">9172</span>
    </span>
    <span class="v-visible-sr">9172 silver badges</span>
    <span title="9224 bronze badges" aria-hidden="true">
      <span class="badge3"></span>
      <span class="badgecount">9224</span>
    </span>
    <span class="v-visible-sr">9224 bronze badges</span>
  </div>

</div>

You mentioned that you aim to target the first two span elements within div.user-details, namely span.user-location and span.reputation-score. The reason for this targeting was not provided, but it would be helpful to know.

The selector you attempted to use is 

div.user-details span:nth-child(-n+2)
. While the initial part of the selector div.user-details span correctly selects all span descendants of div.user-details (totaling 14), the addition of :nth-child(-n+2) filters the selection to include only the first or second child of their parent (resulting in 9 spans). Your actual intention seems to be filtering the results to include only the first or second descendant of div.user-details, yet there isn't a pseudo-class like :nth-descendant() for such functionality. Given the current structure, understanding the rationale behind this targeting method remains unclear.

To accomplish your goal, consider an alternate approach using the class names directly:

.user-location, .reputation-score

Additionally, there are numerous spans nested within the flair element. Consider enhancing semantics by utilizing list elements, which could facilitate easier targeting of desired elements.

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