The selectSingleNode method returns a Node object for the first descendant node to match the specified pattern. The one parameter of this method is an XSL pattern query. If no match is made, it returns null. This method is similar to the selectNodes method, but returns only the first node to match the pattern rather than all of them.

The following example loads the 'vocabulary.xml' file and uses the selectSingleNode method get the first 'Spanish' element node. The code then displays its text.

XML:
<Vocabulary>
   <Word type="noun" level="1">
      <English>cat</English>
      <Spanish>gato</Spanish>
   </Word>
   <Word type="verb" level="1">
      <English>speak</English>
      <Spanish>hablar</Spanish>
   </Word>
   <Word type="adj" level="1">
      <English>big</English>
      <Spanish>grande</Spanish>
   </Word>
</Vocabulary>

Code (VBScript):
Set objXMLDoc = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")
objXMLDoc.async = False
objXMLDoc.load("vocabulary.xml")

Set Node = objXMLDoc.documentElement.selectSingleNode("Word/Spanish")
document.write(Node.text)

Output:
gato