How to locate elements using XPath in Selenium?

September 25, 2025

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In Selenium, XPath is one of the most powerful locators to find elements on a webpage. XPath (XML Path Language) lets you navigate through elements and attributes in an XML/HTML document.

Here’s a breakdown of how to locate elements using XPath in Selenium:

1. Basic Syntax

driver.find_element("xpath", "XPATH_EXPRESSION")

or (older Selenium versions)

driver.find_element_by_xpath("XPATH_EXPRESSION")

2. Types of XPath

✅ Absolute XPath

Starts from the root node (/html) and follows the full path.

Example:

driver.find_element("xpath", "/html/body/div[1]/ul/li[2]/a")

⚠️ Fragile: breaks if the DOM structure changes.

✅ Relative XPath

Starts from anywhere in the document using //.

Example:

driver.find_element("xpath", "//a[@id='login']")

3. Common XPath Patterns

By attribute

//tag[@attribute='value']
//input[@id='username']
//button[@name='submit']

By text

//tag[text()='TextValue']
//button[text()='Login']

Using contains()

//tag[contains(@attribute, 'partialValue')]
//input[contains(@id, 'user')]

Using starts-with()

//tag[starts-with(@attribute, 'prefix')]
//input[starts-with(@name, 'pass')]

Using logical operators (AND / OR)

//input[@type='text' and @name='email']
//button[@id='submit' or @name='login']

Using hierarchical relationships

Parent → Child
```
//div[@class='form-group']/input
```
Child → Parent
```
//input[@id='username']/parent::div
```
Ancestor
```
//input[@id='username']/ancestor::form
```

Following-sibling

//label[text()='Email']/following-sibling::input

4. Example in Selenium (Python)

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://example.com")

# Locate by attribute
username = driver.find_element("xpath", "//input[@id='username']")

# Locate by text
login_button = driver.find_element("xpath", "//button[text()='Login']")

# Locate by partial attribute match
password = driver.find_element("xpath", "//input[contains(@name,'pass')]")

username.send_keys("myuser")
password.send_keys("mypassword")
login_button.click()

👉 Pro tips:

Always prefer relative XPath for maintainability.
Use unique attributes (id, name) when possible.
Combine multiple conditions if the element is hard to identify.

Would you like me to also show you how to generate XPath automatically using browser dev tools (Chrome/Firefox)?

How to install Selenium for Python?

What is difference between driver. quit and driver. close?

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