php - Empty XPath result when it shouldn't be -

i have following simple html:

<span class="myclass">   <strong>number</strong>   : 9 </span> 

i want parse return: : 9

i'm trying following xpath i'm pretty sure correct i'm not getting text returned:

$dom = new domdocument(); $dom->loadhtml($htmlasabove); $xpath = new domxpath($dom); $result = $xpath->query("normalize-space(//span/text()[last()])");  if($result->length > 0) {   echo 'here '.$result->item(0); } else {   echo 'nothing'; // returns every time } 

nothing wrong xpath, domxpath::query() unable return other node-set. executing xpath expression doesn't return node-set*, use domxpath::evaluate() instead :

$result = $xpath->evaluate("normalize-space(//span/text()[last()])"); echo 'here '.$result; 

*: xpath normalize-space() function returns string

eval.in demo

output :

here : 9