After encountering an issue with locating and clicking on a specific element using XPath in WebDriver, I discovered an interesting difference between the console in Chrome DevTools and the Find function.
The XPath that was causing trouble was:
//table[@title="someTitle"]//td[@id="someId"][3]When attempting to click on this element through WebDriver's element(By.xpath(someXpathString)).click();, it resulted in an "ElementNotFound" exception. However, when using the same XPath in the Chrome DevTools console, the desired element was successfully located using:
$x('//table[@title="someTitle"]//td[@id="someId"][3]');Interestingly, changing the XPath slightly to include parentheses like so:
(//table[@title="someTitle"]//td[@id="someId"])[3]solved the problem and allowed WebDriver to find and interact with the element without any issues.
- Note: I need to be able to select multiple elements by index within the same column of a table for my workarounds.
This experience made me question why the Chrome console could identify the XPath without parentheses, while WebDriver had trouble without them. What is the reasoning behind these two variations of the XPath syntax?
In my exploration, I have observed that on some other elements, the use of parentheses is unnecessary to target the 2nd or higher element of that type. Therefore, I am seeking a comprehensive explanation on how this form of XPath operates and the underlying logic governing its behavior.