RE: question regarding XPath

["Arnold, Curt" <Curt.Arnold@hyprotech.com>]

>   For the above, is there a way to return the Component which has the 
> value "SubOption2"? 

//Component[contains(text(),'SubOption2')]

This will return a node set of all Component elements in the document that contain SubOption2 anywhere in their text content.

>   Also, if I have a number of "Component" elements, having 
> the same or 
> different values, then is there a way to return a specific 
> one of them?

You would have to determine the query that gets the element you want.

Using mixed content for something that you intend to query or validate is not optimal.  It would be much cleaner if your source were something like:

<Component name="Star 6_0001">
  <Component name="Option1">
    <Component name="SubOption2">
      <Parameter name="UserSpecifiedPartNumber" value="part2"/>
    </Component>
  </Component>
  <Component name="SubOption1">
      <Parameter name="UserSpecifiedPartNumber" value="part4"/>
  </Component>
</Component>