Are you looking out for XPath jobs? Have you applied for the jobs and now awaiting the interview? Are you worried about the type of XPath Interview Questions that could be asked of you? Are you looking out for a platform to practice the questions? Then you are going the right way. Check out this compilation of handpicked XPath Interview Questions to get a better idea of the type of questions that would be asked. Answers are also provided, along with the questions for your practice.
XPath is a computer programming language that stands for XML Path Language. It is the XSLT standard's major element. XPath enables flexible navigation through attributes and elements in an XML document. The nodes are identified and navigated through "path-like" syntax in an XML document by XPath. Over 200 built-in functions are contained in XPath. The World Wide Web consortium developed the XPath, and it appeared first in 1998.
Let us have some more useful insights on XPath before moving forward-
As we have gained the basic idea of XPath, let us move ahead and look at the XPath Interview Questions- updated (2024) and Answers respectively for each of the following categories-
Top 10 XPath Interview Questions and Answers:
We use XPath axes for identifying the elements by their relationship, such as child, parent, sibling, etc. It is just like the way in which the location of the node is defined by the path.
A list of XPath axes for setting relation from the current node to others is given below-
Functions and operators on nodes are defined by XPath. A string, node-set, a number, or a Boolean is returned by the expression of XPath.
There are different categories of operators in XPath as per their properties. And the different types of XPath operators are given below-
The nodes that are available in XPath are given below. And these are related to each other in a structure like tree. The nodes are-
An example-
<book>
<title>The Alchemist</title>
<author>Paulo Coelho</author>
<year>1993</year>
<price>200.00</price>
</book>
XPath comparison operators are used for comparing one value to another. Some of the different types of comparison operators are given below-
The XPath number operators are used for mathematical computing operations on different keywords. There are five different number operators in XPath, and they are given below-
The Boolean operators are the simple words that are used for combining or excluding keywords. They include OR, AND, NOT, etc. They are used for connecting our search words to either expand or concise our set of results.
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The number functions in XPath are used for fetching the different kinds of values from the expressions. The examples include ceiling value, example, floor value, etc. XPath provides four types of number functions, and they are given below-
Some rules are specified by the XPath string functions, which we use for getting strings according to our preferences.
The nodes that have no child node or parent node are referred to as Atomic values.
For instance-
<book>
<title>The Alchemist</title>
<author>Paulo Coelho</author>
<year>1993</year>
<price>200.00</price>
</book>
Here, Paulo Coelho is an atomic value.
The XPath predicate is the XPath expression that is written in brackets. The selected nodes are restricted in a node-set for some conditions.
The XPath can be executed in jQuery by using $x as follows-
$x("//XPath")
<book>
<title>The Alchemist</title>
<author>Paulo Coelho</author>
<year>1993</year>
<price>200.00</price>
</book>
Here, the book element is the parent of title, author, year, and price.
<bookstore>
<book>
<title>The Alchemist</title>
<author>Paulo Coelho</author>
<year>1993</year>
<price>200.00</price>
</book>
</bookstore>
Here, the bookstore element is the ancestor of the book, title, author, year, and price.
The text function finds the elements with the help of the text present in them.
<button type = “button”>Blueberry</button> (Blueberry is text here.)
XPath with text : //button[ text() = ‘Blueberry’ ]
But contains function has to be used along with text function when the text is dynamic. And some part of the string needs to be static for this to work.
<button type = “button”>*****berry</button>
XPath with text : //button[ contains( text(), ‘berry’) ]
The position function lets the user obtain the match at a particular index. The elements that are greater than the position or less than the position can also be obtained using the position function.
The frame is nothing else but another webpage which is shown as a different web page. Therefore, we can use the XPath just like a normal web page once we go into the frame.
The XPath for a button is written as given below. The button can be formed in two ways- by using input tag or button tag.
// form button using the input tag
<input type = “button’ value = ‘ABCD’>
XPath : // input [ @type = ‘button’ ]
// form button using the button tag
<button>ABCD</button>
XPath : // button
The @method can be used for an attribute. But the @method might not help us in case the attribute value keeps changing from lower to upper case or the mix of changes. In such situations, the case (lower/upper) should be ignored.
Check Out - Finding Elements by XPATH and Using CSS |
We are allowed to select nodes from a document through the expression in an XPath query. For instance, all the elements with a "text" tag can be asked and then filtered by the opening tags.
An XPath query is a bit more complex than an XPath location path as some form of search and logic is required for identifying what nodes are desired. These are useful expressions resulting in Boolean values- true/false by which the nodes are returned on the condition satisfaction.
We can use the normalized-space function for stripping white space from a string and replacing sequences of white space characters with a single space. And then the resultant string is returned.
Expression | Description |
nodename | All the nodes will be selected with the name "nodename." |
/ | Selection will be made from the root node. |
// | The selection will be from the current node document matching the selection regardless of the location. |
. | The current node will be selected. |
.. | The parent of the current node will be selected. |
@ | The attributes will be selected. |
We use XPath wildcards to select unknown XML nodes-
Wildcard | Description |
* | Any element node can be matched. |
@* | Any attribute node can be matched. |
node() | Any node of any kind can be matched. |
child::book- Here, all book nodes that are children of the current node will be selected.
attribute::lang- Here, the lang attribute of the current node will be selected.
XSLT is a language that is used for transforming XML documents.
XPath is a language that is used for navigating XML documents.
XQuery is a language that is used for querying XML documents.
softwareTester[ @name = “T1” ]
Here, the element <softwareTester> with the attribute – T1 will be selected.
//@* - All attributes within the XML document will be selected.
//@id – The id attribute within our XML documents will be selected.
It will result in the selection of all the title elements having a "lang" attribute with the value - "en."
Major languages in which XPath expressions can be used are given below-
The major companies that use XPath are-
Some of the major features of XPath are enlisted below-
The main benefits of XPath are given below-
The nodes and node sets are selected in an XML document by these path expressions or patterns. XSLT uses these patterns for performing transformations.
Check Out: XPATH Usage in Selenium |
Seven types of nodes are specified by XPath as the output of XPath expressions' executions. The list is given below-
There are two types of location paths that the XPath provides. They are as follows-
Different nodes, predicates, path notations, path expressions, and URLs are specified by the XPath syntax, which we can use for defining the XML document.
There are more than 200 built-in functions available in XPath. And we can use these functions in string values, boolean values, date and time comparison, numeric values, sequence manipulation, etc.
It is relatively easy to write program phrases than to understand the XML- style as well as the sequence of each word in a document. Also, a high level of abstraction could be easily understood and handled through XPath. This makes it an important part of XML that is cherished by all its users. Therefore learning XPath proves to be a great asset. And we hope that we were successful in helping you revise the XPath Interview Questions through this compilation.
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Kalla Saikumar is a technology expert and is currently working as a Marketing Analyst at MindMajix. Write articles on multiple platforms such as Tableau, PowerBi, Business Analysis, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and other courses. And you can join him on LinkedIn and Twitter.