Enterprise XPath Solutions

Can you test an element on your web application without finding it? No? This is because efficient element location is one of the most important parts of the testing cycle. However, with the growing complexity of modern applications, it has become increasingly hard to perform this process. To efficiently handle these scenarios, you can consider including element locators like XPath.

At its core, XPath is a powerful query language that can help you easily navigate XML documents. Not familiar with XPath testing? Don’t worry! We are here for you. Our article will help you understand various advanced XPath strategies for enterprise-level applications. It will also help you to easily locate and interact with dynamic and complex web elements.

Why XPath In Web Testing

Before we start discussing the use of XPaths in enterprise-level web development, we must understand why should we use XPath instead of other alternatives. To shed more light over this segment, we have gathered three of the most prominent features of this tool:

  • Modern applications consist of various elements whose attributes change dynamically. These elements are mostly used for improving the user experience. However, it becomes very difficult to verify the functioning of these elements conventionally. XPath provides dedicated dynamic element handling methods for this purpose.
  • XPath also comes with complex DOM structures, which help you to navigate nested and complex document object models that are present in modern application architectures.
  • Currently, it is very important to ensure the proper functioning of your application across multiple browsers on different platforms. To implement this process, XPath helps you to consistently identify elements across various browser configurations and implement the required testing steps.

To better understand the role of XPath in element identification, let us go through some of the major challenges that you will encounter while trying to find the elements on your web application for testing purposes:

  • As we already mentioned earlier, it becomes increasingly difficult to track the elements which have dynamic IDs. This is because these IDs tend to change continuously depending on the state of the application and user interactions.
  • While working with modern web applications, you will come across various elements that are deeply nested into complex DOM hierarchies. So, trying to identify these elements based on conventional methods can be tricky.
  • Finally, various frameworks like React, Angular, or View.JS often use virtual DOMs. This implementation makes it even more difficult to identify elements and locate them during the test execution process.

Advanced XPath Techniques for Enterprise Applications

Below, we have mentioned some of the advanced XPath techniques that you can incorporate while working on enterprise applications. While choosing these techniques, we ensured that we are covering all the aspects that are used in a typical enterprise testing workflow:

●      Using Axes for Traversal

You can use XPath axes to traverse the DOM tree relative to a specific node. This process can be particularly useful while you’re working on complex DOM structures. To shed more light over this segment, we have mentioned some of the most commonly used axes below:

  • The “ancestor” and “ancestor-or-self” will allow you to select all ancestor elements that are present in the current node.
  • On the other hand, “descendant” and “descendant-or-self” will allow you to select all descendant elements of a specific node during the testing process.
  • The “following” and “preceding” axes will be useful when you are trying to select nodes that appear either after or before the specific node in a given document.
  • Finally, the following-sibling and preceding-sibling axes will allow to select all the siblings of a node at a given time.

To further help you understand the functioning of axes in XPath, we have mentioned a sample line of code that you can implement in this regard:

//div[@class=’product-details’]/ancestor::section

With the above code, XPath will select the “section” element, which is an ancestor of the “div” with a class “product-details”

●      Using Wildcards

XPath provides various wildcards that are meant to make the entire expression more flexible. This approach comes in handy when you’re dealing with dynamic attributes of a given element. Let us shed more light on the three major wildcards that are present in XPath:

  • The “*” wild card allows you to match any element node with your required parameters.
  • The “@*” wildcard will be useful if we’re trying to match any specific attribute of a node.
  • Finally, the “node()” wildcard comes in handy when you’re trying to match the type of the code that you are currently working on.

The following sample line of code will help you understand how you can implement wildcards while using XPath:

//input[@*=’search’]

With the above expression, you can command XPath to select an “input” element where any attribute contains the value “search”.

●      Using Functions For Precision

While working with XPath, you will also have access to multiple built-in functions that can help you improve the capabilities of the element identification process. To shed more light, let us go through each of the functions that are currently available:

  • The “contains()” will help you to match the substrings that will be present within the attribute values of a given node.
  • The “starts-with()”, on the other hand, will help you match elements having attribute values starting with the specific string. You can easily specify this string in the expression or the location process.
  • The “text()” function will help you to match elements based on their text content.
  • The “normalize-space()” will help you to select both the leading and trailing white space on the application.

Let us now consider the following line of code as an example to understand how you can implement functions in XPath testing:

//button[contains(text(), ‘Add to Cart’)]

The above code will allow XPaths to select a “button” element whose text contains the substring “add to cart.”

●      Combining Multiple Conditions

Other than individually implementing the conditions during the testing process, you also have the liberty of combining multiple conditions using logical operators like “and” and “or.” To further understand the implementation of this parameter, we can use the reference or the following sample line of code:

//input[@type=’text’ and @placeholder=’Search’]

The above expression will allow XPath to select an “input” element with “type” as text and “placeholder” as search.

●      Dynamic Attribute Handling

As we already mentioned earlier, XPath comes with various native functions to allow you to handle dynamic attributes that are present in modern applications. For example, it allows you to simulate regular expressions using functions like “contains()” and “starts-with().” Let us use the following sample line of code as a reference to understand the implementation of dynamic attribute handling functions:

//div[starts-with(@id, ‘user-profile-‘)]

Using the above expression, XPath will select “div” elements whose “ID” attribute starts with “user-profile-”.

●      Indexing and Positioning

While working on certain applications, you will come across certain scenarios where you have to select the elements based on their position in the application. To tackle such scenarios, XPath natively allows element identification and selection based on their current position within the node set. For example, you can use the command “[n]” to select the nth element in the node and the command “last()” to select the last element in the node.

Let us further understand the implementation of this approach by using the sample expression as our reference point:

//ul[@class=’menu’]/li[1]

Using the above expression, XPath will select the final “li” element within a “ul” with the class menu.

Tools For XPath Testing

While implementing XPath testing, you don’t have to do everything on your own. There are various tools and frameworks in the current market that can assist you in multiple areas, like generating and evaluating XPath expressions. To shed more light over this segment, we have mentioned some of the most popular tools that you can consider in this regard:

  • It is very important to have built-in tools like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, which will allow XPath validation directly within the DOM inspector. Since these are native tools, you don’t have to go through a complex setup and installation process for them.
  • You can also consider using the Selenium Integrated Development Environment, as it has a user-friendly interface for XPath generation and validation. This tool will also be useful for implementing codeless automation testing.
  • There are various online XPath evaluators, like Free Formatter and Code Beauty, which can help you implement quick XPath testing. In this regard, we would like to caution the testers that they will only be effective for simple tasks and easy element identification.
  • Although LambdaTest is not a dedicated XPath tester, you can integrate it with automation test scripts like the Selenium test suite to improve the capabilities of XPath-based web element selection. At its core, LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that lets you perform manual and automation testing at scale with over 3000+ browser-OS combinations and 5000+ real devices. You can use the sample code snippet to integrate XPath with Selenium test scripts on LambdaTest:

Best Practices For Enterprise XPath Solutions

Finally, let us go through some of the best practices that can assist the developers and testers to implement proper XPath testing while working in an enterprise environment:

  • It is very important to avoid over specification. This is because over specific XPaths can be brittle and also vulnerable to breaking after making even a minor DOM change.
  • We suggest the testers to use meaningful and concise XPath expressions as it will play a major role in improving the maintainability of the entire test suite.
  • It is very important to invest in frameworks that offer utilities for simplifying element selection. A great example in this regard will be the React Testing Library.
  • We suggest the testers to combine XPath tester with CSS selectors for simpler queries. This is because CSS selectors can be more efficient and easier to read compared to other alternatives.
  • Finally, you must avoid using overly complex XPath expressions, which will slow down the testing performance. Instead, simple XPath expressions that look at one element at a time will be very effective for optimizing the performance of the entire testing infrastructure.

The Bottom Line

Based on all the factors that we have put forward in this article, we can safely say that XPath will remain a very important tool for web element location when implementing enterprise testing in your complex environments. By mastering all the advanced XPath techniques that we have highlighted in this article, you can overcome the challenges of dynamic and complex web applications.

Moreover, the best practices in this article will also assist you in ensuring the timely delivery of your applications while providing the best experience to your target customers. In short, the testers must aim to combine the best practices, strategies, and the most effective tools to create efficient, maintainable, and scalable test automation solutions.