What does the double forward slash mean in this context?

I came across some code that looks like this:

get dropdownElement() {
  return $(`//button[@class='name_here']//span[contains(., 'Dropdown')]`);
}

And I’m confused as to what the “//” means here; I know that double backslashes are typically meant to escape a character, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a double forward slash. Also, when I see back ticks, they’re usually accompanied by “$” so I was wondering about that too.

Answer

This is using XPath syntax to select elements with jQuery. The double slash essentially means “select all descendants that match this selector”.

So //button[@class='name_here'] matches all elements that are buttons with the name_here class, and //button[@class='name_here']//span[contains(., 'Dropdown')] matches elements that descendants from those buttons, and are spans, and contain Dropdown.