An alternative would be to use XPath 3.1. I am implementing XPath in a tool called Xidel. There the syntax for the example is much simpler: xidel - -e '?items

An alternative would be to use XPath 3.1. I am implementing XPath in a tool called Xidel. There the syntax for the example is much simpler: xidel - -e '?items ?* [?name="green"] ?rgb' Depends what kabacha means with bloated. The XPath syntax is more verbose, but less cryptic