Can we using regular expression in xpath value?

Question

Can we using regular expression in xpath value? I am using xpath value to identify an element on web for automation.

I have following :xpath value.

:xpath,'//*[@id="ngdialog4"]/div[2]/div[2]/table/tbody/tr/td[1]/input'

But, the last digit 4 ngdialog4 is not constant and it keeps on changing each time i open pop-up... can i use some regular expression to match any digit?

Answer 1

You could have theoretically used matches(), but it is a part of xpath 2.0, which webdriver doesn't support, see a detailed explanation here:

• Is string matches() supported in Selenium Webdriver 2?

Apply a starts-with() check instead:

//*[starts-with(@id, "ngdialog")]

Answer 2

Using XPath 2.0 :

:xpath,'//*[matches(@id, '^(ngdialog)[0-9]')]/div[2]/div[2]/table/tbody/tr/td[1]/input'

Answer 3

Since you are using Watir, you could also use a regular expression to find the ngdialog element. XPath could then be used for the other portion of the path (note the starting of the XPath with ./ is used to tell Watir to look within the ngdialog):

browser.element(:id => /ngdialog/).checkbox(:xpath => './div[2]/div[2]/table/tbody/tr/td[1]/input')