What is an XPath?

XPath (XML Path Language) is a query language used to select nodes from XML/HTML documents. It is one of the most powerful and flexible locators in Selenium WebDriver.

Key capabilities:

• ✓Traverse the DOM both upward (to parent) and downward (to children)
• ✓Match elements by attribute, text, position, or relationship
• ✓Use built-in functions: contains(), starts-with(), text(), position()

Basic Syntax:

//tagName[@attribute=''value'']

Types of XPath:

1. ✓Absolute XPath — starts from root: html/body/div/input
2. ✓Relative XPath — starts from anywhere: //input[@id=''username'']

Common examples:

//input[@id=''username'']
//button[text()=''Login'']
//div[@class=''container'']//a
//*[contains(@id,''user'')]

When to use XPath over CSS: Use XPath when you need to traverse to a parent element — CSS Selector can only go downward.