Using XPath in Playwright

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What is XPath in Playwright?

• XPath (XML Path Language) is a way to locate elements on a web page using their structure, attributes, or text.

• Playwright recommends using CSS selectors because they are faster and simpler, but XPath is still supported when CSS selectors are not enough.

 How to Use XPath in Playwright

1. Basic Syntax

In Playwright, prefix your XPath with xpath=.

Example – select element by tag:

await page.locator('xpath=//h1').click();

2. Locate by Attribute

Example – button with id="loginBtn":

await page.locator('xpath=//button[@id="loginBtn"]').click();

3. Locate by Text

Example – paragraph containing exact text:

await page.locator('xpath=//p[text()="Welcome User"]').isVisible();

Example – partial text:

await page.locator('xpath=//p[contains(text(),"Welcome")]').click();

4. Hierarchy (Parent → Child)

Example – select <span> inside a <div>:

await page.locator('xpath=//div[@class="menu"]//span').click();

5. First / nth Element

Example – first button on page:

await page.locator('xpath=(//button)[1]').click();

 Alternative – $x() in Playwright Test

Playwright also allows using page.$x() to return elements by XPath:

const elements = await page.$x('//button[@id="loginBtn"]');
await elements[0].click();

 Best Practices

• Prefer CSS selectors → faster and more stable.

• Use XPath only when CSS selectors can’t express the relationship.

• Keep selectors short and resilient (avoid absolute paths like /html/body/div/...).

Read more:

Writing Locators for Dynamic Elements

Handling Dynamic Content

Working with Page Waits and Timeouts

Running Tests in Different Browsers

Configuring playwright.config.ts

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