How to combine XPATH “select //td/text() or //td/p/text()” into one sentence?

Question

I want to select text() within each row in the following HTML. However, the text I want is either in the td element or the p element, so I have to write two statements to ensure each row is selected.

How do I combine the two statements into one?

XPATH:

//table/tr/td[not(p)]/text() | //table/tr/td/p/text()

With the result desired:

['1', '2', '3', '4']

Original html:

<table>
  <tr>
    <td>1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>
      <p>2
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>3</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>
      <p>4
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

Answer 1

Probably you want something like this:

//table/tbody/tr/td//text()[normalize-space()]

All non-whitespace-only text nodes one or more levels deep in the //table/tr/td will be found.