Selenium 2 - Can findElement(By.xpath) be scoped to a particular element?

Question

All the examples of findElement(By.xpath) I\'ve seen search the whole page, e.g.

WebElement td = driver.findElement(By.xpath(\"//td[3]\"));

Answer 1

Based on ZzZ's answer I think the issue is that the queries you are trying are absolute instead of relative. By using a starting / you force absolute search. Instead use the tag name as ZzZ suggested, ./ or .//.

Look in the XPath docs under "Location Path Expression"