XPATH syntax validator in Python

Question

I develop a crawler with many actions. Many xpaths are involving and for this reason I use a json file for storing. Then crawler start running I would like to make a basic syntax check (before xpath usage) on xpaths and raise error for invalid xpaths.

for example:

xpath1 = '//*[@id="react-root"]/section'
xpath2 = '//*[[@id="react-root"]/section'
xpath3 = '//*[@id="react-root"]\section'

from these xpaths only xpath1 is valid

is there any module or regex which does this kind of validation?

gz. · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-03 10:23:50Z

7

You can compile the xpath strings with lxml.etree.XPath which will raise an exception if the syntax is incorrect:

>>> import lxml.etree
>>> lxml.etree.XPath('//*[@id="react-root"]/section')
//*[@id="react-root"]/section
>>> lxml.etree.XPath('//*[[@id="react-root"]/section')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
lxml.etree.XPathSyntaxError: Invalid expression
>>> lxml.etree.XPath(r'//*[@id="react-root"]\section')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
lxml.etree.XPathSyntaxError: Invalid expression

edited May 3, 2018 at 10:23

answered May 3, 2018 at 10:09

gz.

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1 Comment

Panagiotis Simakis Over a year ago

that's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

user3638751 · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-19 17:54:31Z

-1

from selenium import webdriver;
webdriver.Chrome().find_elements('xpath', '//*[text(),"invalid xpath"]')

answered Nov 19, 2019 at 17:54

user3638751

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