RanoreXPath

A RanoreXPath expression is primarily used to uniquely identify UI elements within a desktop or web application. Generally, a RanoreXPath expression consists of:

Adapters
Attributes
and Values

: Main components of a RanoreXPath expression

The adapter type specifies the type or classification of a UI element to search for (button, form, text field, listbox, etc.).

Looking at the first part of the RanoreXPath expression '/form[@title='Form 1']' the

'/form' string specifies a search for a UI element of adapter type form.
A Ranorex.Form adapter represents top-level windows such as dialogs or messageboxes on the Windows desktop system.
The attribute value comparison '[@title='Form 1']' specifies the UI element in detail.

As an example the first part of the RanoreXPath expression shown in the pictures will look for a UI element which is of type form and has an attribute called 'title' with the value 'Form 1'. This form holds a container witch caption 'Container 1', which holds a button with text 'Button 1'.

: Hierarchical structure of a RanoreXPath

Use the Ranorex Spy tool to get the RanoreXPath for a particular UI object. To edit a RanoreXPath use the text box in Ranorex Spy or change the path value of a repository item directly in the repository view. A more comfortable way to edit RanoreXPath is provided by the Ranorex Path Editor.

Note: Use the <CTRL> key in combination with the arrow keys to navigate to the previous or the next token in RanoreXPath. Use the <CTRL> key and the <SHIFT> key in combination with the arrow keys for selecting specific parts of the RanoreXPath. Use the <SHIFT> key in combination with the <UP> arrow key to select the current token of the RanoreXPath (tokens can be a values, identifiers, operators ...).

In this section you will learn more about RanoreXPath:

RanoreXPath Syntax Examples

Each RanoreXPath can return multiple GUI elements which match the path query. RanoreXPath is modeled on W3C XPath.

Axes
/form/button	absolute path identifying all buttons that are children of a form
./button	relative path identifying all buttons that are children of the current element
//button	identifies all buttons that are descendants of the root element, i.e. all buttons in all levels of the element tree
.//button	identifies all buttons that are descendants of the current element, i.e. all buttons in the subtree of the current element
../button	identifies all buttons that are descendants of the parent of the current element
/form/container?/button	optional location step fitting a container adapter between form and button; identifies both, '/form/container/button' and '/form/button'
/form/?/button	optional location step fitting every adapter between form and button

Attributes
/form	identifies a top level application
/form[@title='Calculator']	identifies a top level application with the title 'Calculator'
/form[ @title='Calculator' and @instance='2']	identifies a top level application with the title 'Calculator' and an attribute of instance with value two
/form[@title='Calculator' or @class='SciCalc']	identifies a top level application with the title 'Calculator' or by its class
/form/button	identifies a button in the application
/form/button[2]	identifies the second button in the application
/form/button[-2]	identifies the second-to-last button in the application
/form/button[@text='7']	identifies a button with a text attribute value of '7'
/form/button[@text!='7']	identifies a button with a text attribute value that is not '7'
/form/button[@text~'^7']	identifies a button using a regular expression
/form/button[@text!~'^7']	identifies a button not matching a regular expression
/form/control[@items.count=100]	identifies a WinForms control using cascaded attribute names. The identified control has an "Items" property that has a "Count" property which returns the value 100
/form/*[@text='7']	identifies any element with a text attribute value of '7'
/form/container? [@caption='Container 1']/button	optional location step fitting a container adapter between form and button; identifies both, '/form/container[@caption='Container 1']/button' and '/form/button'
/form/button[?'add']	identifies button with any attribute containing the substring 'add' (case-insensitive)
/form/button[@text!=null()]	identifies a button where the attribute text is not null
/form/progressbar[@Value>=13.5]	identifies a progress bar with value greater than or equal 13.5 (following comparison operators are also available: >, <=, <)
/form[@title=$var]	identifies a top level application with title attribute value set to value stored in variable $var
/form/button[$var]	identifies the button with index equals the value stored in the variable $var
/dom//input[#'search']	identifies an input element on a web document with unique id 'search' (supported for web testing)

Functions
/form/table/row/cell[first()='True']	identifies the first cell of a row
/form/table/row/cell[last()='True']	identifies the last cell of a row
/form/table/row/cell[index()=2]	identifies the second cell of a row
/form[x()>100 and y()>100]	identifies a top level application with screen coordinates greater than 100
/form/button[cx()>10 and cy()>10]	identifies a button with client coordinates (coordinates of an element relative to its parent) greater than 10
/form[width()>100 and height()>100]	identifies a top level application with width and height greater than 100.

Advanced RanoreXPath Example

The following example describes how to use RanoreXPath to identify a GUI element not having unique attributes. The example shows how to access a HTML checkbox using a relative RanoreXPath expression.

Each row in the table represents a user. The users attributes are mapped into separate cells.

Identify a user from a list by name (highlighted green)
```
/table/*/tr/td/a[@InnerText='Username']
```
Select the corresponding checkbox with a relative path from the name (highlighted red)
```
/../../td/input[@type='checkbox']
```
Get the full path to the checkbox by combining the two paths.

: Advanced RanoreXPath example

RanoreXPath with Regular Expressions

button[@text~'sample[0-9]']	matches the following button elements: 'sample0', 'sample1', ... 'sample9', 'My sample26'
listitem[@text~'^sample.*']	matches all elements starting with text value sample
listitem[@text~'.*sample$']	matches all elements ending with text value sample
listitem[@text~'gr(a\|e)y']	matches text value gray or grey
listitem[@text~'^sample\ 123$']	matches 'sample 123' (use backslash to escape special characters like space)
listitem[@text~'(?i:MyTeXt)']	matches the regular expression case-insensitive, e.g. 'mytext', 'MYTEXT', 'mYTeXT', ...

The following are special characters that need to be escaped when used in a regular expression by prefixing them with a backslash '\'. E.g. when you want to match the text 'Sample.' (with a dot at the end), the dot needs to be escaped: 'Sample\.'.

Character	Description
.	The dot will match any single character. For example 'Sample.' matches 'Sample1', 'Samplex', etc.
$	The dollar sign will match the end of the string. The expression 'abc$' will match the sub-string 'abc' only if it is at the end of the string.
\|	The alternation character allows either expression on its side to match the target string. The expression 'gr(a\|e)y' can match 'gray' or 'grey'.
*	The asterisk indicates that the character to the left of the asterisk in the expression should match zero or more times. For example 'go*gle' matches ggle, gogle, google, gooogle, etc.
+	The plus is similar to asterisk but there must be at least one match of the character to the left of the + sign in the expression. For example 'go+gle' matches gogle, google, gooogle, etc.
?	The question mark (?) matches the character to its left 0 or 1 times. For example, 'colo?r' matches both color and colour.
^	Beginning of the string. The expression '^A' will match an A only at the beginning of the string.
()	The parenthesis affects the order of pattern evaluation.
[]	Brackets enclosing a set of characters indicate that any of the enclosed characters may match the target character.
[^0-9]	The caret immediately following the left-bracket has a different meaning. It is used to exclude the remaining characters within brackets from matching the target string. The expression '[^0-9]' indicates that the target character must not be a digit.

For additional information on regular expressions please consult the corresponding MSDN web site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/az24scfc.aspx