How to verify an XPath expression in Chrome Developers tool or Firefox's Firebug?

Question

How can I verify my XPath?

I am using Chrome Developers tool to inspect the elements and form my XPath. I verify it using the Chrome plugin XPath Checker, however it does not always give me the result. What is a better way to verify my XPath.

I have also tried using Firebug to inspect the bug and also using the FirePath to verify. But does Firepath also verify the XPath.

My last option would be to use the Selenium WebDriver to confirm my XPath.

Answer 1

Chrome

This can be achieved by three different approaches (see my blog article here for more details):

• Search in Elements panel like below
• Execute $x() and $$() in Console panel, as shown in Lawrence's answer
• Third party extensions (not really necessary in most of the cases, could be an overkill)

Here is how you search XPath in Elements panel:

1. Press F12 to open Chrome Developer Tool
2. In "Elements" panel, press Ctrl+F
3. In the search box, type in XPath or CSS Selector, if elements are found, they will be highlighted in yellow.

Firefox (since version 75)

Since FF 75 it's possible to use raw xpath query without evaluation xpath expressions, see documentation for more info.

Firefox (prior version 75)

1. Either select "Web Console" from the Web Developer submenu in the Firefox Menu (or Tools menu if you display the menu bar or are on Mac OS X)
   or press the Ctrl+Shift+K (Command+Option+K on OS X) keyboard shortcut.

2. In the command line at the bottom use the following:

   • $(): Returns the first element that matches. Equivalent to document.querySelector() or calls the $ function in the page, if it exists.

   • $$(): Returns an array of DOM nodes that match. This is like for document.querySelectorAll(), but returns an array instead of a NodeList.

   • $x(): Evaluates an XPath expression and returns an array of matching nodes.

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Firefox (prior version 49)

1. Install Firebug
2. Install Firepath
3. Press F12 to open Firebug
4. Switch to FirePath panel
5. In dropdown, select XPathor CSS
6. Type in to locate