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I know absolute XPath will return the inspected node from root node in XML tree.
But I am not able to understand the meaning of .// used in XPath to inspect/find a node.
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0 votes. Single Slash “/” – Single slash is used to create Xpath with absolute path i.e. the xpath would be created to start selection from the document node/start node.
Difference between “/” and “//” in XPathSingle slash is used to create absolute XPath whereas Double slash is used to create relative XPath. 2. Single slash selects an element from the root node. For example, /html will select the root HTML element.
By adding '//*' in XPath you would be selecting all the element nodes from the entire document. In case of the Gmail Password fields, .//*[@id='Passwd'] would select all the element nodes descending from the current node for which @id-attribute-value is equal to 'Passwd'.
It starts with the forward slash '/' . Generally, Absolute XPath is not recommended because in future any of the web element when added or removed then Absolute XPath changes. Relative XPath; In this, XPath begins with the double forward slash '//' which means it can search the element anywhere in the Webpage.
. is the current node; it is short for self::node().
// is the descendant-or-self axis; it is short for /descendant-or-self::node()/.
Together, .// will select along the descendent-or-self axis starting from the current node. Contrast this with // which starts at the document root.
Consider the following HTML:
<html>
<body>
<div id="id1">
<p>First paragraph</p>
<div>
<p>Second paragraph</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Third paragraph</p>
</body>
</html>
//p will select all paragraphs:
<p>First paragraph</p>
<p>Second paragraph</p>
<p>Third paragraph</p>
On the other hand, if the current node is at the div element (with @id of "id1"), then .//p will select only the paragraphs under the current node:
<p>First paragraph</p>
<p>Second paragraph</p>
Notice that the third paragraph is not selected by .//p when the current node is the id1 div because the third paragraph is not under that div element.
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