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

This is a FAQ:

//someName[3]

means: all someName elements in the document, that are the third someName 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.

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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>."

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There is no i in xpath is not entirely true. You can still use the count() to find the index.

Consider the following page

Heading 1	Heading 2	Heading 3	Heading 4	Heading 5	Heading 6
Data row 1 col 1	Data row 1 col 2	Data row 1 col 3	Data row 1 col 4	Data row 1 col 5	Data row 1 col 6
Data row 2 col 1	Data row 2 col 2	Data row 2 col 3	Data row 2 col 4	Data row 2 col 5	Data row 2 col 6
Data row 3 col 1	Data row 3 col 2	Data row 3 col 3	Data row 3 col 4	Data row 3 col 5	Data row 3 col 6
Data row 4 col 1	Data row 4 col 2	Data row 4 col 3	Data row 4 col 4	Data row 4 col 5	Data row 4 col 6
Data row 5 col 1	Data row 5 col 2	Data row 5 col 3	Data row 5 col 4	Data row 5 col 5	Data row 5 col 6
Modify	Modify	Modify	Modify	Modify	Modify

Heading 7	Heading 8	Heading 9	Heading 10	Heading 11	Heading 12
Data row 1 col 1	Data row 1 col 2	Data row 1 col 3	Data row 1 col 4	Data row 1 col 5	Data row 1 col 6
Data row 2 col 1	Data row 2 col 2	Data row 2 col 3	Data row 2 col 4	Data row 2 col 5	Data row 2 col 6
Data row 3 col 1	Data row 3 col 2	Data row 3 col 3	Data row 3 col 4	Data row 3 col 5	Data row 3 col 6
Data row 4 col 1	Data row 4 col 2	Data row 4 col 3	Data row 4 col 4	Data row 4 col 5	Data row 4 col 6
Data row 5 col 1	Data row 5 col 2	Data row 5 col 3	Data row 5 col 4	Data row 5 col 5	Data row 5 col 6
Modify	Modify	Modify	Modify	Modify	Modify

The page has 2 tables and has 6 columns each with unique column names and 6 rows with variable data. The last row has the Modify button in both the tables.

Assuming that the user has to select the 4th Modify button from the first table based on the heading

Use the xpath //th[.='Heading 4']/ancestor::thead/following-sibling::tbody/tr/td[count(//tr/th[.='Heading 4']/preceding-sibling::th)+1]/button

The count() operator comes in handy in situations like these.

Logic:

Find the header for the Modify button using //th[.='Heading 4'] Find the index of the header column using count(//tr/th[.='Heading 4']/preceding-sibling::th)+1

Note: Index starts at 0

Get the rows for the corresponding header using //th[.='Heading 4']/ancestor::thead/following-sibling::tbody/tr/td[count(//tr/th[.='Heading 4']/preceding-sibling::th)+1] Get the Modify button from the extracted node list using //th[.='Heading 4']/ancestor::thead/following-sibling::tbody/tr/td[count(//tr/th[.='Heading 4']/preceding-sibling::th)+1]/button

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//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]

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(//*[@attribute='value'])[index] to find target of element while your finding multiple matches in it

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Here is the solution for index variable

Let's say, you have found 5 elements with same locator and you would like to perform action on each element by providing index number (here, variable is used for index as "i")

for(int i=1; i<=5; i++)
{
    string xPathWithVariable = "(//div[@class='className'])" + "[" + i + "]";
    driver.FindElement(By.XPath(xPathWithVariable)).Click();
}

It takes XPath :

(//div[@class='className'])[1]
(//div[@class='className'])[2]
(//div[@class='className'])[3]
(//div[@class='className'])[4]
(//div[@class='className'])[5]

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