Understanding WebElement.findElement() and XPATH

selenium, xpath

Solution

There are my 2 comments with your sample code

1 - With your posted HTML, the xpath //a/li[2] is not found (we only have 3 elements with //a/li[1])

2 - Assume that we do have right code, you need to understand the differences between single slash and double slash in Xpath

a/b (single slash): select element that has "tag b" and "stands right after" an element that has "a tag"

E.g.:

<a>
    <b>
          <d>
               <c>
               </c>
          </d>
    </b>
</a>

AND

a//b (double slash): select element that has "tag b" and is n-level-child an element that has "a tag"

E.g.:

<a>
    <c>
          <d>
               <b>
               </b>
          </d>
    </c>
</a>

So, with your code

<a>
<li> parent 1
    <div>
        <span class="child-title child-style">title 1</span>
        <span class="child-date child-style"> date 1</span>
        <span class="child-author">author 1</span>
    </div>
</li>
</a>

If you want to get Date Info, you should use

WebElement parent = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a/li"));
WebElement date = parent.findElement(By.xpath("div/span[contains(@class, 'child-date')]"));
WebElement date = parent.findElement(By.xpath("//span[contains(@class, 'child-date')]"));

The code

WebElement date = parent.findElement(By.xpath("span[contains(@class, 'child-date')]"));

Will bring out NoSuchElementException because there is no [span] tag right after [li] tag

Hope help

Problem

I want to use the `WebElement.findElement()` API to locate a node inside the parent node using XPATH `//span[@class='child-class']`. I thought this would return me the `<div>` that is inside the parent. However, it is returning me the first one it found in the entire DOM tree. Did I use the wrong XPATH? I have also tried using `.//span[@class='child-class']` as the XPATH, but that does return anything. Thank you. UPDATE: given the HTML below, I want to define a locator for the child-title `<span>` and child-date `<span>` and locate them using WebElement.findElement() API regardless of the parent being "//a/li[1]" or "//a/li[2]" ``` <a> <li> parent 1 <div> <span class="child-title child-style">title 1</span> <span class="child-date child-style"> date 1</span> <span class="child-author">author 1</span> </div> </li> </a> <a> <li> parent 2 <div> <span class="child-title child-style">title 2</span> <span class="child-date child-style"> date 2</span> <span class="child-author">author 3</span> </div> </li> </a> <a> <li> parent 3 <div> <span class="child-title child-style">title 3</span> <span class="child-date child-style"> date 3</span> <span class="child-author">author 3</span> </div> </li> </a> ``` I have a `WebElement parent2` initialized and located using `"//a/li[2]"`, `WebElement child = parent2.findElement(By.xpath("//span[@class='child-author']"));` would give me "author 1" `WebElement child = parent2.findElement(By.xpath("span[@class='child-author']"));` would give me `NoSuchElementException`

Original source