XPath search

IntelliJ IDEA lets you use XPath 3.0 to find specific XML nodes in XML files in your current project, directory, or within a custom scope.

When you compose an XPath expression, IntelliJ IDEA provides code completion for XPath axes and checks the expression syntax. It also provides XPath syntax highlighting, which can be customized in Settings | Editor | Color Scheme | XPath.

Enable the XPathView + XSLT plugin

This functionality relies on the XPathView + XSLT plugin, which is bundled and enabled in IntelliJ IDEA by default. If the relevant features aren't available, make sure that you didn't disable the plugin.

Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and then select Plugins.
Open the Installed tab, find the XPathView + XSLT plugin, and select the checkbox next to the plugin name.

Search in XML files

In the main menu, go to Edit | Find | Find by XPath. The Find by XPath Expression dialog opens.
Type an XPath expression.
For example, the following expression:
//application[@title="BestApp"]/descendant::resource
will search for resource tags that are descendants of an application tag that has an attribute title with the value BestApp.
Choose the scope for the search.
If you select Directory and specify a path to a directory, you can also select the Recursively checkbox to search for nodes in all subdirectories.
The XPath search results are displayed in the Find tool window.

Last modified: 11 February 2024