Why we use xpath in selenium

It also overcomes the fragile nature of Absolute XPath. Even if any preceding element changes or removes, it will not affect the Relative XPath. Let's modify the above code snippet to locate the image using the relative XPath in Selenium:.

So, this way, we can locate any of the web elements on a web page by using the XPath in Selenium , which always serves a savior locator strategy when we don't have the standard attributes of any web element are not available. Table of Contents. Selenium WebDriver Tutorial. Next Lesson. Share this post:. Write Effective XPaths. Object Repository. By Lakshay Sharma. User Defined Functions. Log4J Logging. QA Practices. It selects the node from the root.

As you can see, we have three div elements. You could do it by using the ID attribute, like this:. How could we tell them apart using XPath? The answer is simple: we can use an index. But how can you leverage XPath in Selenium? With your favorite programming language, you have to use the By. The following example was written in JavaScript:.

The example above finds the h1 element from the example. The following example retrieves the same element, but this time using the relative XPath:. Selenium has its pros and cons , as any tool does. XPath is certainly no exception to that. The main pro of finding elements via XPath is that it allows you to interact with dynamic elements, which are impossible or hard for you to locate via IDs or other attributes. The main cons of using XPath in testing relate to the robustness of test cases.

Since XPath relies on attributes of the elements that can be changed, tests that use XPath for element location can suddenly fail when those elements are updated. This causes a scenario where test maintenance is a burden.

So, what are the similarities and differences between the two? Right off the bat we can say—just by their names—that findElement returns a single element while its counterpart returns more than one element. Not really rocket science, right? If more than one matching element is found, findElement will return the first element, while findElements will return a zero-based indexed array with all elements.

What if no element is found? Finally, the verdict. Which one is better? Which one should you use? Actually, it is the answer is very easy. I will show this in the same example. Finally, the statement is finalized as shown below. It is a very handy XPath Selenium locator and sometimes it saves the life of a test automation engineer. When an attribute of an element is dynamic, then you can use contains for the constant part of the web element but also you can use contains in any condition when you need.

This method checks the starting text of an attribute. It is very handy to use when the attribute value changes dynamically but also you can use this method for non-changing attribute values. In this method, we use two interrogation conditions such as A and B and return a result-set as shown below:. It finds the element before the ancestor statement and sets it as a top node and then starts to find the elements in that node.

In the below example,. I think you got the idea if not, please write a comment and I will clarify your questions. Starts to locate elements after the given parent node. It finds the element before the following statement and sets it as the top node and then starts to find all elements after that node.

Select all nodes that come before the current node. I give an example on swtestacademy. Example :. Then, find the first Odamax hotel with XPath. If you have any questions or any queries please write a comment. I will try to do my best to reply. Also, you can learn how to write effective Selenium CSS locators in the below article.

This is by far the best tutorial on using xpath. It clearly explains the structure of an xpath expression; it then describes the variety of usage, clearly and with great graphics. Great work and thanks. I agree. Now I learned much more after reading this tutorial. These XPath axes methods are used to find the complex or dynamic elements. Below we will see some of these methods. Selects all elements in the document of the current node [ UserID input box is the current node] as shown in the below screen.

If you want to focus on any particular element then you can use the below XPath method:. The ancestor axis selects all ancestors element grandparent, parent, etc. If you want to focus on any particular element then you can use the below XPath, where you change the number 1, 2 as per your requirement:. If you want to focus on any particular element then you can use the below xpath:.

If you want to focus on any particular element then you can use the below XPath:. Select the following siblings of the context node. Siblings are at the same level of the current node as shown in the below screen. It will find the element after the current node. It always finds only one node as it represents self-element.

XPath is required to find an element on the web page as to do an operation on that particular element. Skip to content. What is XPath in Selenium?