Is there a way to get the XPath in Google Chrome?

Question

I have a webpage I want to use with YQL. But I need the XPath of a specific item. I can see it in the debug tools area for Google Chrome but I don't see a way to copy that XPath.

Is there a way to copy a full XPath?

Answer 1

You can use $x in the Chrome javascript console. No extensions needed.

ex: $x("//img")

Also the search box in the web inspector will accept xpath

Answer 2

Right click on the node => "Copy XPath"

Answer 3

All above answers are correct here is another way with screenshot too.

From Chrome :

1. Right click "inspect" on the item you are trying to find the xpath
2. Right click on the highlighted area on the console.
3. Go to Copy xpath

Answer 4

XPath Helper extension does what you need: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hgimnogjllphhhkhlmebbmlgjoejdpjl

Answer 5

Google Chrome provides a built-in debugging tool called "Chrome DevTools" out of the box, which includes a handy feature that can evaluate or validate XPath/CSS selectors without any third party extensions.

This can be done by two approaches:

Use the search function inside Elements panel to evaluate XPath/CSS selectors and highlight matching nodes in the DOM. Execute tokens $x("some_xpath") or $$("css-selectors") in Console panel, which will both evaluate and validate.

From Elements panel

1. Press F12 to open up Chrome DevTools.

2. Elements panel should be opened by default.

3. Press Ctrl + F to enable DOM searching in the panel.

4. Type in XPath or CSS selectors to evaluate.

5. If there are matched elements, they will be highlighted in DOM. However, if there are matching strings inside DOM, they will be considered as valid results as well. For example, CSS selector header should match everything (inline CSS, scripts etc.) that contains the word header, instead of match only elements.

From Console panel

1. Press F12 to open up Chrome DevTools.

2. Switch to Console panel.

3. Type in XPath like $x(".//header") to evaluate and validate.

4. Type in CSS selectors like $$("header") to evaluate and validate.

5. Check results returned from console execution.

If elements are matched, they will be returned in a list. Otherwise an empty list [ ] is shown.

$x(".//article")
[<article class="unit-article layout-post">…</article>]

$x(".//not-a-tag")
[ ]

If the XPath or CSS selector is invalid, an exception will be shown in red text. For example:

$x(".//header/")
SyntaxError: Failed to execute 'evaluate' on 'Document': The string './/header/' is not a valid XPath expression.

$$("header[id=]")
SyntaxError: Failed to execute 'querySelectorAll' on 'Document': 'header[id=]' is not a valid selector.

Answer 6

No extension needed in chrome now. Right click on any element you want xpath for and click on "Inspect Element" and then again inside the Inspector, right click on element and click on "Copy Xpath".

Answer 7

Let tell you a simple formula to find xpath of any element:

1- Open site in browser

2- Select element and right click on it

3- Click inspect element option

4- Right click on selected html

5- choose option to copy xpath Use it where ever you need it

This video link will be helpful for you. http://screencast.com/t/afXsaQXru

Note: For advance options of xpath you must know regex or pattern of your html.

Answer 8

xpathOnClick has what you are looking for: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ikbfbhbdjpjnalaooidkdbgjknhghhbo

Read the comments though, it actually takes three clicks to get the xpath.

Answer 9

As of the latest update for chrome you can now click any element in the element inspector and copy the XPath to clipboard.

Answer 10

For Chrome, for instance:

1. Right-click "inspect" on the item you are trying to find the XPath.
2. Right-click on the highlighted area on the HTML DOM.
3. Go to Copy > select 'Copy XPath'.
4. After the above step, you will get the absolute XPath of the element from DOM.
5. You can make changes to make it relative XPath (because if the DOM changes, still your XPath would be able to find the element).

a. To do so, by opening the 'Elements' panel of the browser, press CTRL+F, paste the XPath.

b. Make changes as describes in the following example.

Absolute xpath = //*[@id="app"]/div[1]/header/nav/div[2]/ul/li[2]/div/button

Related xpath = //div//nav/div[2]/ul/li[2]/div/button

When you make changes:

1. make sure the XPath is unique within the DOM.
2. still the web element is selected on the DOM and on the webpage.

Answer 11

press Cntl + Shift + C
select the element you wish to get its XPath by clicking on it
right click on the highlighted part in the console
copy -> copy XPath

Answer 12

Just right-click on the element you want the xpath for and you will see a menu item to copy it. This may not have existed when the OP made his post but it's certainly there now.

Answer 13

In Firebug in Firefox, you can right click on an element after inspecting it, and choose Copy XPath. I could not get ChromYQLip to work smoothly.

Answer 14

You can try using Chrome Web Extension TruePath which dynamically generates the relative XPath on right click on the web page and display all the XPath as menu items.

Answer 15

There are multiple ways to get XPath in google chrome-

1. You can write your own XPath.

2. You can write it in console using $x('xpath')

3. You can use SelectorsHub browser plugin.

Answer 16

Slightly OT, but perhaps useful: On Mac Chrome, although you cannot copy the xpath out of the search box in the Dev tools panel (instead, copy grabs the node as HTML), you can drag and drop the text into an external editor.

Answer 17

I tried almost all the available extensions and found the below to be one of the best.

ChroPath Extension link

Just like FirePath, this extension directly gives you the Xpath when you click on Inspect.

Answer 18

First open your Google Chrome

and open any website

and inspect that

Answer 19

Use this extension, it generates xpaths based on id or class, which is probably what you want to use.

Click on the browser icon, the panel is shown on the right corner of the page, then click start inspect, then click on any element to get your xpath.

XPath Generator