XPath
XPath is the XML path query language, selecting nodes from XML documents with expressions like /root/child[@attr="val"].
Purpose
To select node sets from XML documents by path and predicate, used by XSLT, XQuery, XML databases, and testing.
Mechanism
A path expression consists of /-separated steps, each with an axis (child/attribute/descendant...), a node test, and a predicate [expr]. Evaluation returns a node set, string, number, or boolean.
Use cases
- Node selection in XSLT
- XML database queries
- Selenium element location