How to get text of <span> based on the <p>?

Question

How do I find the element with text "Jessica" based on "3000" displaying in the web page using xpath?

I'm getting ...not a valid xpath error.

<div>
  <span><b>Jessica</b></span>
  <br>
  <label>Total Wealth ($):</label>
  <p>3000</p>
</div>

I tried this

RichestPersonName = browser.find_element_by_xpath("//p[text()='3000'] .. /span").text

but it shows

selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidSelectorException: Message: invalid selector: Unable to locate an element with the xpath expression //p[text()='3000'] .. /span because of the following error:
SyntaxError: Failed to execute 'evaluate' on 'Document': The string '//p[text()='3000'] .. /span' is not a valid XPath expression.

Answer 1

i tried this and it works. Managed to get 'Jessica'

RichestPersonName = browser.find_element_by_xpath("//p[text()='3000']/preceding-sibling::span").text

Answer 2

You should use the preceding-sibling Xpath option:

//p[text=()='3000']/preceding-sibling::span

Answer 3

By selecting the correct approach of creating locators can make any automation framework more efficient. Xpath is one of the available options to locate any element in complex html web pages. With the help of XPath, tester can find the exact element by navigating through different hierarchies of web page. Like by using, any of these functions : Contains, Sibling and Parent etc.

In special scenarios where element needs to be located by referring to another element, any professional testing company prefer dynamic techniques of selecting element on a webpage using HTML DOM structure rather than making it hard coded.

Three possible ways to locate desired element in your case are given below :

1. **/..** : "//p[text()='3000']/../span"

2. **Preceding-Sibling** : "//p[text()='3000']/preceding-sibling::span"

3. **Parent** : "//p[text()='3000']/parent::div/span"

These approaches will find the required node span with text 'Jessica' by navigating through other elements.