title: Need python lxml syntax help for parsing html
body: <p>I am brand new to python, and I need some help with the syntax for finding and iterating through html tags using lxml.  Here are the use-cases I am dealing with:</p>
  
  <p>HTML file is fairly well formed (but not perfect).  Has multiple tables on screen, one containing a set of search results, and one each for a header and footer.  Each result row contains a link for the search result detail.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>I need to find the middle table with the search result rows (this one I was able to figure out):</p>
  
  <pre><code>    self.mySearchTables = self.mySearchTree.findall(".//table")
      self.myResultRows = self.mySearchTables[1].findall(".//tr")
  </code></pre></li>
  <li><p>I need to find the links contained in this table (this is where I'm getting stuck):</p>
  
  <pre><code>    for searchRow in self.myResultRows:
          searchLink = patentRow.findall(".//a")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It doesn't seem to actually locate the link elements.</p></li>
  <li><p>I need the plain text of the link.  I imagine it would be something like <code>searchLink.text</code> if I actually got the link elements in the first place.</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Finally, in the actual API reference for lxml, I wasn't able to find information on the find and the findall calls.  I gleaned these from bits of code I found on google.  Am I missing something about how to effectively find and iterate over HTML tags using lxml?</p>