What is XPath?

Definition of XPath

XPath is widely used in various technologies and programming languages for working with XML, such as XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations), XML parsers, web scraping, and XML databases. It provides a powerful and flexible way to extract data from XML documents based on specific criteria.

XPath (XML Path Language) is a language used for selecting nodes from an XML (Extensible Markup Language) document. It provides a way to navigate through the elements and attributes of an XML structure and access specific data within it.

XPath, an essential component of Selenium WebDriver, is a powerful locator technique used to navigate through the HTML structure of a web page. It allows you to precisely locate elements within both HTML and XML documents using the HTML DOM structure.

• XPath stands for XML Path Language
• XPath uses "path like" syntax to identify and navigate nodes in an XML document
• XPath contains over 200 built-in functions
• XPath is a major element in the XSLT standard

Xpath Functions

XPath uses a path-like syntax to specify the location of elements or attributes in an XML document. It can be used to select individual nodes, a group of nodes, or retrieve values from specific attributes or elements.XPath includes over 200 built-in functions.

There are functions for string values, numeric values, booleans, date and time comparison, node manipulation, sequence manipulation, and much more.

Today XPath expressions can also be used in JavaScript, Java, XML Schema, PHP, Python, C and C++, and lots of other languages.

Key Features and Concepts of XPath

1. Node: In XPath, everything in an XML document is considered a node. This includes elements, attributes, text, comments, and processing instructions.
2. Path Expression: A path expression is used to navigate through the XML document and locate specific nodes. It consists of a sequence of steps separated by slashes (/). Each step represents a node or a combination of node tests, axis specifiers, and predicates.
3. Node Test: A node test is used to match specific types of nodes in an XPath expression. For example, you can match element nodes, attribute nodes, text nodes, etc.
4. Axes: Axes define the relationship between nodes and allow navigation in different directions. Some commonly used axes are child, parent, ancestor, descendant, following, and preceding.
5. Predicates: Predicates are used to filter nodes based on specific conditions. They are enclosed in square brackets ([]), and only nodes that satisfy the conditions within the predicates are selected.

Types of XPath Nodes

XPath includes seven different types of nodes with different functions they are listed below which are self-explanatory.?These are the various node Kinds.

• Element:?These type follows the root node and can contain attribute in it. And the node tests are node()
• Attribute:?This can be assigned below the element or root node and denoted using ‘@’. attribute:: * which matches all the nodes.
• namespace:?NCName: * matches namespace for all the nodes.
• text:?Represents the text written inside an element node and represented as text ().
• comment:?This node specifies the comment part for the particular code which is not processed by any programming language compiler and assigned as a comment ().
• Processing instruction:?this specifies the instruction for the application and can be used anywhere in the XML document. And declared as Processing-instruction ().
• Root Nodes:?This is the topmost element of the document with the child elements under it.

Types of X-path

Absolute XPath: It is the direct way to find the element, but the disadvantage of the absolute XPath is that if there are any changes made in the path of the element then that XPath gets failed.

The key characteristic of XPath is that it begins with the single forward slash (/), which means you can select the element from the root node.

Relative Xpath: Relative Xpath?starts from the middle of HTML DOM structure. It starts with double forward slash (//). It can search elements anywhere on the webpage, means no need to write a long xpath and you can start from the middle of HTML DOM structure. Relative Xpath is always preferred as it is not a complete path from the root element.