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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-06T16:19:03+00:00

I’m playing with Behat and Selenium server. I’m trying to target a specific tag

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I’m playing with Behat and Selenium server.
I’m trying to target a specific tag based on its position in the document.

I use AquaPath, a GUI to play with XPath and works fine.
My problem is that when i try the same expression in Behat/Selenium, i have a “The expression is not a legal expression” error message.

Here is my Xpath :

(//label)[5]/@for

I’m looking for the “for” attribute of the fifth label element having this attribute.
Seems easy, but doesn’t work and I really don’t know why…

Here is the complete log (note that //html is added automatically):

The given selector //html//(label)[1] is either invalid or does not result in a WebElement. The following error occurred:
[InvalidSelectorError] Unable to locate an element with the xpath expression //html//(label)[1] because of the following error:
[Exception... "The expression is not a legal expression."  code: "51" nsresult: "0x805b0033 (NS_ERROR_DOM_INVALID_EXPRESSION_ERR)"  location: "file:///var/folders/66/bv_nvdt97f33pm2qn78v_8qc0000gn/T/anonymous5419845357799771264webdriver-profile/extensions/fxdriver@googlecode.com/components/driver_component.js Line: 2621"]
Command duration or timeout: 6 milliseconds
For documentation on this error, please visit: http://seleniumhq.org/exceptions/invalid_selector_exception.html
Build info: version: '2.23.1', revision: '17143', time: '2012-06-08 18:59:04'
System info: os.name: 'Mac OS X', os.arch: 'x86_64', os.version: '10.7.4', java.version: '1.6.0_33'
Driver info: driver.version: EventFiringWebDriver
Session ID: c3bdf2e6-5042-ac4a-95c5-4735f4318899

Any idea ?

Here is the HTML (labels are not always at the same depth) :

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head></head>
  <body>
    <form action="" method="get" accept-charset="utf-8">
      <label for="label1"></label>
      <label for="label2"></label>
      <div>
        <label for="label3"></label>        
      </div>
      <fieldset>
        <div>
          <label for="label4"></label>
        </div>        
      </fieldset>
      <label for="label5"></label>
      <label for="label6"></label>
      <label for="label7"></label>
      <label for="label8"></label>
      <label for="label9"></label>
      <p><input type="submit" value="Continue &rarr;"></p>
    </form>
  </body>
</html>
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    My opinion is that “find()” method with “xpath” selector can’t get an attribute, only an element. Getting the attribute must be done via “getAttribute()”.

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