I am wondering whether it is possible to use relative XPath expressions in libxml2. This is from the javax.xml.xpath API and I would like to do the similar thing using libxml2: Node widgetNode = (Node) xpath.evaluate(expression, document, XPathConstants.NODE); With a reference to the element, a relative XPath expression can now written to select the child element: XPath xpath = XPathFactory.newInstance().newXPath(); String expression = "manufacturer"; Node manufacturerNode = (Node) xpath.evaluate(expression, **widgetNode**, XPathConstants.NODE);