Puppeteer - Absolute Xpath

To determine an element uniquely, we can either take the help of any of the attributes within the html tag or we can use a combination of attributes on the html tag. Mostly the id attribute is used since it is unique to a page.

However, if the id attribute is not present, we can use other attributes like the class, name, and so on. In case the attributes like id, name, class are not present, we can utilise a distinct attribute available to only that tag or a combination of attributes and their values to identify an element. For this, we have to use the xpath expression. Also, if the element on a page is dynamic, then xpath selector can be a good choice as a selector.

Xpath can be of two types - absolute and relative. The absolute xpath begins with / symbol and starts from the root node upto the element that we want to identify. An example is given below for the same.

/html/body/div[1]/div/div[1]/a

Let us identify the below highlighted logo on the page with the help of the absolute xpath and then click on it.

Puppeteer Tutorialspoint

The absolute xpath for the logo is as follows −

html/body/header/div[4]/div[1]/div[1]/a/img.

Here, we are working with the xpath selector, so we have to use the method: page.$x(xpath value). The detail on this method is discussed in the Chapter of Puppeteer Locators.

To begin, follow Steps 1 to 2 from the Chapter of Basic Test on Puppeteer which are as follows −

Step 1 − Create a new file within the directory where the node_modules folder is created (location where the Puppeteer and Puppeteer core have been installed).

The details on Puppeteer installation is discussed in the Chapter of Puppeteer Installation.

Right-click on the folder where the node_modules folder is created, then click on the New file button.

Node Modules

Step 2 − Enter a filename, say testcase1.js.

Testcase1.JS

Step 3 − Add the below code within the testcase1.js file created.

//Puppeteer library
const pt= require('puppeteer')
async function selectorAbsoluteXpath(){
   //launch browser in headless mode
   const browser = await pt.launch()
   //browser new page
   const page = await browser.newPage()
   //launch URL
   await page.goto('https://www.tutorialspoint.com/about/about_careers.htm')
   //identify element with absolute xpath then click
   const b = (await page.$x("/html/body/header/div[4]/div[1]/div[1]/a/img"))[0]
   b.click()
   //wait for sometime
   await page.waitForTimeout(4000)
   //obtain URL after click
   console.log(await page.url())
}
selectorAbsoluteXpath()

Step 4 − Execute the code with the command mentioned below −

node <filename>

So in our example, we shall run the following command −

node testcase1.js
puppeteer_tutorialspoint1.png

After the command has been successfully executed, the URL of the page navigated on clicking the logo image - https://www.tutorialspoint.com/index.htm gets printed in the console.

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