diff --git a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/expressions/xml/xpath.scala b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/expressions/xml/xpath.scala
index f65061e8d0ea9..5b06741a2f54e 100644
--- a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/expressions/xml/xpath.scala
+++ b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/expressions/xml/xpath.scala
@@ -242,13 +242,15 @@ case class XPathString(xml: Expression, path: Expression) extends XPathExtract {
     Examples:
       > SELECT _FUNC_('<a><b>b1</b><b>b2</b><b>b3</b><c>c1</c><c>c2</c></a>','a/b/text()');
        ["b1","b2","b3"]
+      > SELECT _FUNC_('<a><b>b1</b><b>b2</b><b>b3</b><c>c1</c><c>c2</c></a>','a/b');
+       [null,null,null]
   """,
   since = "2.0.0",
   group = "xml_funcs")
 // scalastyle:on line.size.limit
 case class XPathList(xml: Expression, path: Expression) extends XPathExtract {
   override def prettyName: String = "xpath"
-  override def dataType: DataType = ArrayType(SQLConf.get.defaultStringType, containsNull = false)
+  override def dataType: DataType = ArrayType(SQLConf.get.defaultStringType)
 
   override def nullSafeEval(xml: Any, path: Any): Any = {
     val nodeList = xpathUtil.evalNodeList(xml.asInstanceOf[UTF8String].toString, pathString)
diff --git a/sql/catalyst/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/expressions/xml/XPathExpressionSuite.scala b/sql/catalyst/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/expressions/xml/XPathExpressionSuite.scala
index 9e4e7bee28ae1..252bcea76007a 100644
--- a/sql/catalyst/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/expressions/xml/XPathExpressionSuite.scala
+++ b/sql/catalyst/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/expressions/xml/XPathExpressionSuite.scala
@@ -185,6 +185,11 @@ class XPathExpressionSuite extends SparkFunSuite with ExpressionEvalHelper {
     testExpr("<a><b class='bb'>b1</b><b>b2</b><b>b3</b><c class='bb'>c1</c><c>c2</c></a>",
       "a/*[@class='bb']/text()", Seq("b1", "c1"))
 
+    checkEvaluation(
+      Coalesce(Seq(
+          GetArrayItem(XPathList(Literal("<a></a>"), Literal("a")), Literal(0)),
+          Literal("nul"))), "nul")
+
     testNullAndErrorBehavior(testExpr)
   }