find_element(By.XPATH) driver method – Selenium Python

Selenium’s Python Module is built to perform automated testing with Python. Selenium Python bindings provide a simple API to write functional/acceptance tests using Selenium WebDriver. After you have installed selenium and checked out – Navigating links using the get method, you might want to play more with Selenium Python. After one has opened a page using selenium such as neveropen, one might want to click some buttons automatically or fill a form automatically or any such automated task. 
This article revolves around how to grab or locate elements in a webpage using locating strategies of Selenium Web Driver. More specifically, find_element_by_xpath() is discussed in this article. 
XPath is the language used for locating nodes in an XML document. As HTML can be an implementation of XML (XHTML), Selenium users can leverage this powerful language to target elements in their web applications. XPath extends beyond (as well as supporting) the simple methods of locating by id or name attributes, and opens up all sorts of new possibilities such as locating the third checkbox on the page.
 

Syntax –  

driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "xpath")

Example – 
For instance, consider this page source: 

Now after you have created a driver, you can grab an element using – 

login_form = driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "/html/body/form[1]")
login_form = driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "//form[1]")

How to use driver.find_element(By.XPATH) method in Selenium?

Let’s try to practically implement this method and get an element instance for “https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/”. Let’s try to grab search form input using its name “search”. 
Create a file called run.py to demonstrate the find_element(By.XPATH) method – 

Now run using – 

Python run.py

First, it will open the firefox window with neveropen, and then select the element and print it on the terminal as shown below. 
Browser Output – 

Terminal Output – 

More locators for locating single elements

.math-table { border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; } .math-table td { border: 1px solid #5fb962; text-align: left !important; padding: 8px; } .math-table th { border: 1px solid #5fb962; padding: 8px; } .math-table tr>th{ background-color: #c6ebd9; vertical-align: middle; } .math-table tr:nth-child(odd) { background-color: #ffffff; }