XPath For Selenium

XPath is not the only technology that Selenium supports for locating elements. It also offers an option to search a web element dynamically, which gives you flexibility in how you want to search for elements.

XPath Axis Family Tree Analogy

The major XPath axes follow family tree terminology:

• self:: is you.

Downward:

• child:: are your immediate children.
• descendant:: are your children, and their children, recursively.
• descendant-or-self:: (aka //): are you and your descendants.

Upward:

• parent:: is your mother or father.
• ancestor:: are your parent, and your parent's parent, recursively.
• ancestor-or-self:: are you and your ancestors.

Sideways (consider elements earlier in the document to be younger):

• previous-sibling:: are your younger siblings, in age order.
• following-sibling:: are your older siblings, in age order.
• previous:: are your younger siblings and their descendants, in age order.
• following:: are your older siblings and their descendants, in age order.