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?

Solution

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")]

Comments

[Arran]

If the browser has an XPath engine, WebDriver will use it. If the browser's XPath engine doesn't support it, WebDriver won't. If the browser doesn't have an XPath engine (typically IE), then WebDriver places it's own library to use. So saying "It doesn't support XPath 2" is not correct at all.