XPath Copier for VS Code

XPath Copier is a Visual Studio Code extension that makes it simple to generate and copy XPaths for elements in XML‑like documents. It works with XML, HTML and XHTML files (or any other languages you configure) and offers several formats including full paths with indexes, compact paths without unnecessary indexes, name‑based paths and human‑readable breadcrumbs. A unified Quick Pick makes it easy to choose a format on the fly, and a reverse command lets you paste an XPath and jump directly to the referenced element.

Features

🧩 Copy XPaths in Multiple Formats

Six built‑in formats are supported:

You can trigger any of these commands directly from the Command Palette, a context menu in the editor or via optional keybindings. A single “XPath: Copy…” command displays a Quick Pick where you can choose the desired format.

📄 Paste & Go

The “XPath: Go To…” command lets you paste an XPath string (such as one that was generated previously) and the extension will move the cursor to the matching element. If no element matches the path, you will be notified.

🔍 Multi‑Cursor Friendly

When you have multiple selections or cursors active, XPath Copier will generate a list of XPaths. You can choose whether multiple results are joined with newlines or encoded as a JSON array via the xpathCopier.multicursorFormat setting.

🧠 Uses the LemMinX XML Language Server via Red Hat's XML Extension for Accurate Paths

XPath Copier relies on VS Code’s document symbol provider (powered by the Red Hat XML Language Server) to understand the structure of your document. Make sure you have an XML language server installed and running—such as redhat.vscode‑xml or another extension that provides XML support. If no language server is available the extension will warn you on activation and immediately disable itself.

⚙️ Configuration

Settings can be adjusted in your user or workspace settings under the xpathCopier namespace:

See package.json for the full schema. To add or remove languages just set xpathCopier.languages to a list of language IDs; commands and context menus will follow your configuration.

🧪 Testing

Unit tests live in the test directory and use Mocha. They verify the XPath generation logic, including indexing and name handling. You can run the tests with:

npm test

🔨 Building & Packaging

The source code lives under src/ and compiles to dist/ via TypeScript. To compile and package the extension into a .vsix file run:

npm install
npm run build

This uses the vsce tool internally to create a ready‑to‑install package.

📦 Icon & Licence

The file icon.png contains a free‑to‑use icon included with this repository. The extension is published under the MIT Licence.

Known Limitations

• XPath Copier depends on a language server to provide document symbols. Without one, it cannot compute meaningful XPaths.
• Only elements represented by DocumentSymbol entries are considered. Attributes and text nodes are not supported.
• Custom format templates must use the variables ${tag}, ${index} and ${name}. If a variable is undefined for a given segment it will be replaced with an empty string.

Contributing

Pull requests and issues are welcome! Please provide detailed steps to reproduce any problems, along with example input files when applicable.