How this xpath and contains function works in the following xpath

Question

I've a xpath with contains function. I don't know what ., in contains() mean and how does this xpath work? Can anybody please tell me? Thanks.

xpath('//div[label//text()[contains(., "Faculty")]]//input')

Answer 1

. references current context node, which in your case is text node since the . resides in the predicate expression (expression within []) for text(). Break down of your XPath expression :

• //div[...] : find div elements, anywhere in the document, where...
• label : the div has child element label
• //text()[contains(., "Faculty")]: and the label contains descendant text nodes where the value of the text node contains literal 'Faculty'
• //input: from such div that satisfy all the above criteria, return descendant elements input

Answer 2

so xpath is //div[label//text()[contains(., "Faculty")]]//input

//div[...]//input searches for all inputs in all divs that matches special condition in brackets

The condition is label//text()[contains(., "Faculty")]

so the above div should have direct child (on 1st level) in which on any level below item with text containing "Faculty" exists