Basic XPath (Tag, Attribute & Value)

Single Attribute:

Single attribute XPath uses one attribute to locate an web element.

Syntax:

//tag[@attribute = 'value']

Example:

//input[@id = 'user-message']

This would select the input element nodes which has 'user-message' as it’s id attribute value.

Let's get a clear view with the below example:

//li[@id = 'ogbkddg:4']

Here, //li[@id = 'ogbkddg:4'] selects all the 'li' node which has 'ogbkddg:4' as it's attribute id.

Multiple Attribute:

Sometimes it may not be possible to locate an element with a single attribute. In the real world, we have a similar issue. We cannot locate a person just by his/her first name or last name. We have to use a combination of first name and last name to locate a person without making any confusion. A similar technique is used in selenium for locating elements.

Syntax:

//tag[@attribute1='value1'][@attribute2='value2']…[@attributeN='valueN']

Example:

//input[@class='button'][@type='submit'][@value='LOGIN'][@name='Submit']

Let's get a clear view with the below example:

//div[@class = 'ctr-p']

After using the above XPath in 'google.com', we will get two nodes in result.

Now if we want to get a single node than we can simply add another attribute in the above XPath and get the desired result. We will use below XPath:

//div[@class = 'ctr-p'][@id = 'footer']

Here we can see after adding new attribute we are able to select our desired node only. To get the other node we can just simply use:

//div[@class = 'ctr-p'][@id = 'viewport']