Xpath with elements containing specific text

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To select an <a> element that contains an href attribute with the text "test" using XPath, you can use the contains() function.

Here’s the XPath expression to select an <a> element where the href contains the substring "test":

//a[contains(@href, 'test')]

Explanation:

  • //a: Selects all <a> elements in the document.
  • contains(@href, 'test'): Matches only those <a> elements where the href attribute contains the string "test".

Example HTML:

<a href="https://example.com/test-page">Link 1</a>
<a href="https://example.com/sample">Link 2</a>
<a href="https://example.com/testing">Link 3</a>

XPath Query:

//a[contains(@href, 'test')]

Result:

This XPath will select the following <a> elements from the example HTML:

<a href="https://example.com/test-page">Link 1</a>
<a href="https://example.com/testing">Link 3</a>

Additional Use Cases:

If you want to match the href that starts with "test", use the starts-with() function:

//a[starts-with(@href, 'test')]

If you want to match the entire href (i.e., it should be exactly "test"), you can use the = operator instead of contains():

//a[@href='test']