Prefixes and advanced usage

Prefixes and advanced usage

Custom XPath prefix

By default each translated selector starts with .//. We can customise this by passing prefix.

echo new Translator("h1, p", prefix: "descendant-or-self::");
// descendant-or-self::h1 | descendant-or-self::p

This is useful when integrating into existing XPath strategies.

Using asXPath() vs casting

Both of these are equivalent:

$xpathA = (string)new Translator(".content");
$xpathB = (new Translator(".content"))->asXPath();

Use whichever reads better in your codebase.

Combining predicates

Complex selectors can stack class, id, attribute, and pseudo predicates together.

main article .content[data-categories~=test]:nth-child(2)

Here we can keep selectors readable while still producing a precise XPath query.

Current scope

This repository is intentionally lightweight and dependency-free. It focuses on a practical subset of CSS selectors commonly used for DOM traversal and querySelector-style APIs.

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