Xpath Selectors
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
parent, children siblings ancestors, descendents
/ <- root of the page
/html/body <- root of the page to the html tag to the body tag
walking, 'traversing' a path
/html/body/div
entering the root of the page, walking into the html tag, down into body, into the first div we encounter
What about the second div?
/html/body/div[2]
What about grabbing any div we find?
//div
What about any div, with the id of first_section?
//div[@id='first_section']
What about the second list item, beneath the div with the id, first_section?
//div[@id='first_section']//li[2]
What if we do not know what the tag is, but know we want the id of 'second_section'?
//*[@id='second_section']
What about grabbing the element with the id of 'first_item'?
//*[@id='first_item']
What about grabbing the element above that? -- what does it grab?
//*[@id='first_item']/../
And the one above that? -- what does it grab?
//*[@id='first_item']/../../
And the one above that?
How about grabbing any option item under a select tag?
//select//option
And the entire document?
Exercises
- Grab the input element with the name of 'email'
- Grab the element with the value of 'promote'
- Do it in a more specific fashion
- Grab the element above that
- Select all the input elements within that element
- Grab just the second input element
