html_text_parent.R

require(rvest)

html_text_parent = function(x){
  x2 = rlang::duplicate(x, shallow = FALSE)
  children = html_children(x2)
  xml2::xml_remove(children)
  txt = html_text(x2)
  x = map(children, ~ xml2::xml_add_child(x, .value = .x))
  txt
}

#-------------------------

# Usage

h = '<ul>
<li id="target">
text to extract
<ul><li>text to ignore</li><li>this too</li></ul>
<ul><li>text to ignore</li><li>this too</li></ul>
</li>
</ul>'

doc = xml2::read_html(h)
x = html_node(doc, '#target')

html_text(x)
#> [1] "\ntext to extract\ntext to ignorethis tootext to ignorethis too"

html_text_parent(x)
#> Error in map(children, ~xml2::xml_add_child(x, .value = .x)): could not find function "map"