How to select specified node within Xpath node sets by index with Selenium?

Question

I'm writing a Selenium testcase. And here's the xpath expression I use to match all 'Modify' buttons within a data table.

//img[@title='Modify']

My question is, how can I visit the matched node sets by index? I've tried with

//img[@title='Modify'][i]

and

//img[@title='Modify' and position() = i]

But neither works.. I also tried with XPath checker(One firefox extension). There're totally 13 matches found, then I have totally no idea how am I gonna select one of them.. Or does XPath support specified selection of nodes which are not under same parent node?

Answer 1

There is no i in XPath.

Either you use literal numbers: //img[@title='Modify'][1]

Or you build the expression string dynamically: '//img[@title='Modify']['+i+']' (but keep in mind that dynamic XPath expressions do not work from within XSLT).

Or does XPath support specified selection of nodes which are not under same parent node?

Yes: (//img[@title='Modify'])[13]

---

This //img[@title='Modify'][i] means "any <img> with a title of 'Modify' and a child element named <i>."

Answer 2

//img[@title='Modify'][i]

is short for

/descendant-or-self::node()/img[@title='Modify'][i]

hence is returning the i'th node under the same parent node.

You want

/descendant-or-self::img[@title='Modify'][i]

Answer 3

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... Found the solution after spending 1 whole day..

THANKS A TON Tomalak, your line "Yes: (//img[@title='Modify'])[13]" gave me a sigh of relief..

Answer 4

This is a FAQ:

//someName[3]

means: all someName elements in the document, that are the third child of their parent -- there may be many such elements.

What you want is exactly the 3rd someName element:

(//someName)[3]

Explanation: the [] has a higher precedence (priority) than //. Remember always to put expressions of the type //someName in brackets when you need to specify the Nth node of their selected node-list.