What is Absolute Path and Relative Path in xpath

-> XPath is designed to allow the naviagtion of XML documents.

-> The main purpose of Xpath is selecting individual elements, attributes or some other part of XML documents.


Absolute XPath

Absolute XPath starts with the root node or a forward slash (/).
The advantage of using absolute is, it identifies the element very fast.
Disadvantage here is, if any thing goes wrong or some other tag added in between, then this path will no longer works.

Example:
If the Path we defined as
1. html/head/body/table/tbody/tr/th

If there is a tag that has added between body and table as below
2. html/head/body/form/table/tbody/tr/th

The first path will not work as 'form' tag added in between


Relative Xpath

A relative xpath is one where the path starts from the node of your choise - it doesn't need to start from the root node.

It starts with Double forward slash(//)

Syntax:
//table/tbody/tr/th

Advantage of using relative xpath is, you don't need to mention the long xpath, you can start from the middle or in between.

Disadvantage here is, it will take more time in identifying the element as we specify the partial path not (exact path).

If there are multiple elements for the same path, it will select the first element that is identified