Best XPath tools

Question

What tools are you guys using for XPath and why? Right now I'm using

• SketchPath because its totally awesome, but its a windows app that needs to be installed
• WhiteBeam online XPath test bedbecause you can test expressions from the website

SketchPath seems to stand out the most to me because it actually helps you create the xpath and it is very advanced. If you haven't tried it you should.

Cons to SketchPath: you have to install it on the machine, otherwise it is fantastic.

Cons to WhiteBeam: you have to upload your file which I don't always want to do for security reasons and the file size you can upload has some limit on it, and uploading a file is annoying anyways. Also I think there might be some subtle differences between the xpath used for that tool and when running a .NET app. But don't remember any right now. Just keep it in mind.

Solution 1

If you're in a web dev environment, Firefox has a number of great tools for XPath support and analysis:

• Firebug has built-in XPath support
• XPath Checker I have found to be great

and also maybe of use:

• XPath Runner
• FireXPath

Be careful with Firebug - the right-click "copy XPath" command copies the path as all lower-case, and some XML parsers (like the MXSML parser used in FinalBuilder) are case-sensitive - so you'll need to correct the casing of your Firebug-copied XPath statement otherwise your parser won't find any matching nodes.

Solution 2

[Update] XMLQuire was originally recommended in this answer. It was a free XML editor for Windows with the SketchPath XPath Editor built in for XPath testing.

XMLQuire has not been maintained for a few years and has now been retired.

For XPath experimentation etc. XMLQuire's author now recommends the XPath Notebook extension for Visual Studio Code. Developed by the same author, this now supports XPath 3.1 courtesy of Saxonica's Saxon-JS processor.

Solution 3

with this xpath tester you can test standard XPath expressions

You can also save your XPath's and XMLs at any point of time to return to it later or post a link in web or email, which is a really handy feature.

Solution 4

SketchPath is the best tool for XPath that I have used so far. I have used oXygen as well, but prefer SketchPath to oXygen for XPath.

Solution 5

I like XPather, a Firefox plugin. It's simple and easy-to-use and it's not a separate program to run as long as you have Firefox running which is when and where I'm usually using XPath.

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Comments

[Steve Bennett]

XPath Checker crashed Firefox on my 35Mb XML file.

[csharpforevermore]

Seems that it won't work with namespaces. Tried {w3.org/2005/Atom}entry and got nothing whereas in code, I got values. Anyone else had better luck?

[zhaorufei]

Thanks for your excellent work. It's really worthy to mention that how to bring up the "Xpath Editor", I almost give up this invaluable utility just because I cannot manually edit an Xpath. :-)

[Optimus1]

Thanks @pgfearo this is a really nice tool.

[David Clarke]

Useful tool but has an annoying System Modal dialog when entering XPath query. Also would be useful to allow expanding multi-line text area for entering XPath query.

[pgfearo]

@DavidClarke Will see what I can do for the next release. In the mean time there's also Pathenq - an online XPath 2.0 tool I maintain.

[David Clarke]

Thanks Philip, appreciate the quick response.

[Talon]

This program does not handle large files. 50mb = OutOfMemoryException

[CodyBugstein]

It's crap, it doesn't let you search XPath

[pgfearo]

As the author of XMLQuire, the plan is to retire this in mid 2021 and replace it with the Visual Studio Code XPath 3.1 Notebook extension - currently a Work in Progress.

[pgfearo]

XMLQuire has now been retired and replaced by a VS Code extension. I've updated the answer to reflect this.