Xpath

• Xpath is defined as XML path.
• It is a syntax or language for finding any element on the web page using XML path expression.
• Xpath is used to find the location of any element on webpage using HTML DOM structure.
• Xpath can be used to navigate through elements and attributes in DOM.
• Xpath is an address of the element.

Types of xpath

• Absolute / Full xpath
  • ex: /html/body/nav/div/div[2]/ul[3]/li[1]/a
  • /html/body/div[1]/div/div[3]/div[1]/img
• Relative / Partial xpath
  • ex: //*[@id="header-navbar"]/ul[3]/li[1]/a
  • //*[@id="divLogo"]/img

Difference between Absolute and Relative xpaths

1. Absolute → xpath starts from root html node Relative → xpath directly jump to element on DOM
2. Absolute → xpath start with single slash “/” Relative → xpath start with double slash “//”
3. Absolute → xpath only use tags/nodes Relative → xpath use attributes

How to write xpaths manually

/html/body/div[6]/div[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[1]/ul/li[1]/a

syntax of writing relative xpath :

//tagname[@attribute=’value’]