What is the difference between relative and absolute XPath

Question

I was using XPath for locating an element and came to know there are two kinds of XPath. Can someone help me distinguish between them and tell me as which of the two is better for testing purpose?

Answer 1

Absolute Xpath: It contains the complete path from the Root Element to the desire element.

Relative Xpath: This is more like starting simply by referencing the element you want and go from the particular location.

You use always the Relative Path for testing of an element. The reason behind that is if you make any architectural change in the website the change won't effect the testing or selecting of the element.

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Answer 2

Relative - the element is positioned relative to its normal position. Absolute - the element is positioned absolutely to its first positioned parent. Fixed - the element is positioned related to the browser window.

Answer 3

Absolute XPath:

It is the direct way to find the element, but the disadvantage of the absolute XPath is that if there are any changes made in the path of the element then that XPath gets failed.

The key characteristic of XPath is that it begins with the single forward slash(/) ,which means you can select the element from the root node.

Relative Xpath:

Relative Xpath starts from the middle of HTML DOM structure. It starts with double forward slash (//). It can search elements anywhere on the webpage, means no need to write a long xpath and you can start from the middle of HTML DOM structure. Relative Xpath is always preferred as it is not a complete path from the root element.

Hope this helps!

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