What is XPath?

XPath (XML Path Language) is a query language for selecting nodes and computing values from XML and HTML documents using path expressions. It’s a W3C standard used extensively in XSLT transformations, web scraping, test automation (Selenium), and XML processing.

Path expressions

XPath uses path-like syntax to navigate the document tree:

/bookstore/book/title        → Select all <title> elements under <book> under <bookstore>
//title                      → Select all <title> elements anywhere in the document
/bookstore/book[1]           → Select the first <book> element
/bookstore/book[last()]      → Select the last <book> element
/bookstore/book[@category]   → Select <book> elements that have a "category" attribute

The / separator navigates child elements (like a file path). // selects descendants at any depth.

Predicates and filters

Square brackets filter nodes by condition:

//book[@category='fiction']           → Books with category "fiction"
//book[price > 30]                    → Books with price greater than 30
//book[contains(title, 'Python')]     → Books with "Python" in the title
//div[@class='content']//p            → All <p> elements inside <div class="content">

Axes

XPath axes select nodes relative to the current node:

• parent::* — the parent element
• ancestor::div — all ancestor <div> elements
• following-sibling::* — all following siblings
• preceding::* — all nodes that appear before in document order
• descendant-or-self::* — the current node and all descendants

Short forms: .. for parent, . for self, @ for attributes.

XPath in web scraping and testing

Selenium, Playwright, and Puppeteer all support XPath selectors for locating elements:

# Selenium
driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "//button[@id='submit']")

# Playwright
page.locator("xpath=//input[@name='email']")

While CSS selectors handle most cases, XPath is more powerful for:

• Selecting elements by text content: //button[text()='Submit']
• Navigating upward: //span[@class='error']/parent::div
• Complex conditions: //tr[td[1]='Active' and td[3] > 100]

XPath vs. CSS selectors

CSS selectors are shorter and more readable for simple selections. XPath is more expressive — it can traverse upward (parent, ancestor), filter by text content, and evaluate complex boolean conditions. Performance-wise, CSS selectors are generally faster in browsers.

XPath vs. JSONPath

JSONPath brings XPath-like querying to JSON documents. The syntax differs ($.store.book[*].title vs /store/book/title), but the concept is the same: navigate a tree structure with path expressions.

Format XML documents with the XML Formatter, test JSONPath expressions with the JSON Path Tester, or convert between formats with XML to JSON.