Free Online Developer Tool

XPath Query Tester

Evaluate XPath 1.0 expressions against XML & HTML in real time. Auto-suggest expressions, register namespaces, and inspect every matched node instantly.

Start Testing How It Works
XML / HTML Source

Drop your file here or

Supports: .xml, .html, .htm, .svg, .xhtml, .xsl

XPath Expression
Auto-suggestions
Provide XML/HTML to see suggestions
Results
Ready — provide XML and an XPath expression, then click Evaluate.

Results will appear here after evaluation.

Capabilities

Everything You Need to Test XPath

A complete XPath testing environment with real-time evaluation, intelligent suggestions, and detailed node inspection.

Real-Time Evaluation

Results appear instantly via server-side PHP DOMXPath processing. No page reloads — just pure AJAX speed.

🧠

Auto-Suggest XPath

Paste your XML and get intelligent XPath expression suggestions based on the actual document structure.

📄

XML & HTML Support

Automatically detects whether your input is well-formed XML or HTML, and parses accordingly for accurate results.

🌐

Fetch from URL

Load live XML feeds or HTML pages directly from any public URL for XPath testing against real-world content.

🏷️

Namespace Support

Register multiple namespace prefixes for querying namespaced XML documents like SOAP envelopes and Atom feeds.

🔍

Node Inspector

Each matched node displays its type, name, full value, attribute list, child count, and precise document XPath.

Usage

How to Use the XPath Tester

1

Provide XML / HTML

Paste content directly, upload a file (.xml, .html, .svg), or fetch from a public URL.

2

Get Auto-Suggestions

The tool parses your document and suggests relevant XPath expressions you can click to use instantly.

3

Write Your XPath

Enter any XPath 1.0 expression — axes, predicates, functions like contains(), position(), count().

4

Evaluate & Inspect

Click Evaluate to see matched nodes with their type, content, attributes, and full document path in the results panel.

XPath Query Tester: Master XPath Expressions Online

If you work with XML documents, web scraping, automated testing, or data extraction, you need a reliable XPath query tester. XPath — short for XML Path Language — is a query language that lets you navigate and select nodes within an XML or HTML document using path expressions. Whether you are debugging an XPath selector in Selenium, building an XSLT transformation, or parsing an RSS feed, our free online XPath tester gives you instant, accurate results directly in your browser.

What Is XPath?

XPath is a W3C-standardised language used to traverse the hierarchical tree structure of XML and HTML documents. It treats a document as a tree of nodes — elements, attributes, text, comments, and processing instructions — and provides a concise syntax for pinpointing exactly which nodes you want. An XPath expression like //book[@category='fiction']/title selects the <title> element of every <book> that carries a category attribute with the value fiction.

XPath Examples You Should Know

Understanding common XPath expression patterns will help you write queries faster. Here are practical XPath examples that cover the most frequently used constructs:

XPath Cheat Sheet: Key Axes & Functions

The XPath specification defines thirteen axes for navigating a document tree. The most useful are child::, parent::, ancestor::, descendant::, following-sibling::, and preceding-sibling::. Combined with predicates enclosed in square brackets and built-in functions such as contains(), starts-with(), last(), position(), string-length(), and translate(), you can express almost any node-selection logic without writing a single line of imperative code.

XPath in Web Scraping & Test Automation

XPath is the backbone of many scraping frameworks and test automation tools. Selenium WebDriver's By.xpath() locator, Scrapy selectors, and libxml2-based parsers all rely on XPath to target page elements precisely. When an element has no unique id or class, XPath's relative and absolute path syntax fills the gap. Testing XPath expressions before embedding them in automation scripts can save hours of debugging — which is exactly why a live XPath tester is indispensable.

Working with Namespaces in XPath

Namespaced XML documents — SOAP envelopes, Atom/RSS feeds, SVG files, or custom enterprise schemas — require namespace-aware XPath queries. Our tester lets you register namespace prefixes in the format prefix=http://example.com/ns, then use those prefixes in your expression (e.g. //soap:Body/soap:Fault). Without namespace registration, XPath queries on namespaced documents return empty results, a common gotcha even for experienced developers.

How to Use This XPath Online Tester

Start by pasting your XML or HTML into the editor, uploading a file, or fetching content from any public URL. The tool will automatically parse the document and offer smart XPath suggestions based on its actual structure. Write or click a suggested expression, optionally add namespace mappings, then hit Evaluate XPath. The results panel lists every matched node with its type (Element, Attribute, Text, or scalar), its serialised value, all attributes, child count, and the full document path — giving you everything needed to verify and refine your XPath selectors with confidence.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

An XPath Query Tester is an online tool that lets you write, evaluate, and debug XPath expressions against XML or HTML documents in real time without any software installation.
This tool supports XPath 1.0 natively via PHP's DOMXPath. It covers all axes, predicates, and built-in functions like contains(), starts-with(), normalize-space(), position(), count(), and more.
Yes. The tool auto-detects HTML input and parses it using PHP's DOMDocument with HTML mode, allowing you to run XPath queries on real HTML structures including scraped or pasted web pages.
Enter namespace mappings in the format prefix=uri (semicolon-separated for multiple) in the Namespace field. The tool registers them before evaluating your expression, enabling accurate queries on namespaced XML such as SOAP or Atom.
Yes, the XPath Query Tester on SEOWebChecker.com is completely free with no login, account, or installation required. You can use it unlimited times directly in your browser.
Yes. Switch to the URL tab, paste any publicly accessible XML or HTML URL, and click Fetch URL. The tool fetches the content server-side and loads it into the editor for immediate XPath evaluation.
All standard XPath 1.0 axes are supported: child, parent, ancestor, descendant, following-sibling, preceding-sibling, ancestor-or-self, descendant-or-self, self, attribute, namespace, following, and preceding.

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