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I am new to selenium coding, and I am seeing several xpaths that contain (.,'followed by something') what does the ., refer to?

DebanjanB
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ALISON HARTLEY
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  • Welcome to Stack Overflow. Please [edit] the question to include one or more sample xpath examples that show this. By seeing the full context it will be possible to verify that the `.` refers to the current element. – Jason Aller Sep 19 '19 at 14:55

1 Answers1

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The . character within the is the short form of text()

As an example if an WebElement is represented within the DOM Tree as:

<span>Use this payment method</span>

Effective Locator Strategies will be:

  • xpath 1:

    //span[text()='Use this payment method']

  • xpath 2:

    //span[contains(., 'Use this payment method')]

Reference

You can find a couple of relevant discussions in:

DebanjanB
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