'Same XPath Node returns different result

Imagine I got the following simple .xml file

<a>
  <b>
    <c>
      <n id = "1"/>    
    </c>  
    <n id = "2"/>    
    <n id = "3"/>    
  </b>
</a>

and the following to queries and their respective result:

"//n[preceding::n]/@id" result = 2 3
"//n[preceding::n and following-sibling::n]/@id" result = 2

To me, both queries "stop" at the same node, which is <n id = "2"/> , because it is the first node called n, which has a preceding::n (a preceding node called an) and is also the first node called n, with a preceding::n (a preceding node called n) a following-sibling::n (a following sibling called n)

So why do I get different results?

xpath

Solution 1:^[1]

preceding::n refers to any node in the structure

preceding Indicates all the nodes that precede the context node in the document except any ancestor, attribute and namespace nodes.

This one would get same results

xmllint --xpath '//n[preceding-sibling::n or following-sibling::n]/@id' test.xml
 id="2" id="3"

Sources

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Solution	Source
Solution 1	LMC

'Same XPath Node returns different result

Solution 1:[1]

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Related Questions

Solution 1:^[1]