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I understand that for the below xml the xpath expression "//span[position()=1]" returns the first span element anywhere in the document:
<div>
<span>qty</span>
<span>price</span>
<span>time</span>
</div>
But when the same expression "//span[position()=1]" is used for the below XML, then it returns all the span elements instead of the first span element
<div>
<b><span>qty</span></b>
<b><span>price</span></b>
<b><span>time</span></b>
</div>
Any help would be appreciated.
Because in your first example all your span elements reside on the same level so that they all have different positions. However in your second example each span resides within its own container (<b>) where each of them has the position=1, hence all the elements are returned.
To return first span in your second example you can use the xpath like this:
(//span)[1]
position function returns a number equal to the context position from the expression evaluation context." from developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/XPath/Functions/position. The article gives also examples.