XPath expression generation
Last modified: 21 June 2022Before you start
Install and enable the XPathView + XSLT plugin on the Settings/Preferences | Plugins page, tab Marketplace, as described in Installing plugins from JetBrains repository.
This action computes a unique XPath expression that matches the currently selected node in the document. The action is available from the main menu (View | Unique Path) and the editor context menu (Show Unique XPath). The action is only enabled when the caret is placed on an element that a useful expression can be generated for.
tip
The generated expression in the popup can be selected and copied into the clipboard for further use.
If a simple XPath expression like /root/something/else
doesn't produce a unique result, the action has two strategies to make it unique:
If the non-unique node is an element, the action looks for attributes with the name
id
,name
, and attributes that are of ID type, as defined by the document's DTD or XML Schema. For example:/root/something[@id="foo"]/else
For nodes other than elements (comments, processing instructions), or if the above rule doesn't produce a unique result, the index of the node inside its parent is appended. For example:
/root/something/else[2]