What is XPath in XML?

Estimated study time: 13 minutes.

XPath (XML Path Language) is a query language for selecting nodes from an XML document. Instead of writing custom code to walk the tree, you describe a path, and XPath finds every element or attribute that matches it.

A Simple Example

<course>
  <modules>
    <module>Excel Basics</module>
    <module>SQL for Analysis</module>
  </modules>
</course>

/course/modules/module

This XPath expression selects every module element nested inside modules inside the root course element — returning both module nodes.

Why XPath Matters

• It's the addressing system XSLT uses to select which parts of a document to transform.
• It powers node selection in most XML-processing libraries and tools.
• The same path syntax works consistently across many technologies (XSLT, XQuery, and testing tools).

Where You'll See XPath

• Inside XSLT stylesheets, to select which nodes to transform.
• In test automation tools, to locate elements in an HTML/XML DOM.
• In XML-processing libraries like lxml in Python.