Click a button with XPath containing partial id and title in Selenium IDE

Question

Using Selenium IDE, I'm trying to click a button within a table on a webpage using XPath with a partial id and a title from the element. The XPath I'm using is:

xpath=//*[contains(@id, 'ctl00_btnAircraftMapCell')]//*[contains(@title, 'Select Seat')] 

and that's the entire HTML code for an example of the buttons I'm trying to click:

<li id="ctl00_MainContent_repAircraftMap_ctl20_repAircraftMapRow‌​_ctl00_liAircraftMap‌​Cell" class=""> 

    <a id="ctl00_MainContent_repAircraftMap_ctl20_repAircraftMapRow‌​_ctl00_btnAircraftMa‌​pCell" href="javascript:void(0)" seatnumber="20A" mapbindattribute="1124" title="Select Seat 20A" onclick="SeatClick(1124);"></a> 

</li>

Am I constructing this incorrectly? It's not working!

Answer 1

By seeing your HTML sample, we're able to see that your XPath is slightly wrong. While it's valid XPath, it's logically wrong.

You've got:

*[contains(@id, 'ctl00_btnAircraftMapCell')]//*[contains(@title, 'Select Seat')]

Which translates into:

Provide me with all the elements that have an ID that contains ctl00_btnAircraftMapCell. Out of these elements, give me any child elements that have a title that contains Select Seat.

What you actually want is:

a[contains(@id, 'ctl00_btnAircraftMapCell') and contains(@title, 'Select Seat')]

Which translates into:

Provide me with all the anchor elements that have both: an id that contains ctl00_btnAircraftMapCell and a title that contains Select Seat.

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