Get CSS path from Dom element

To always get the right element, you will need to use :nth-child() or :nth-of-type() for selectors that do not uniquely identify an element. So try this:

var cssPath = function(el) {
    if (!(el instanceof Element)) return;
    var path = [];
    while (el.nodeType === Node.ELEMENT_NODE) {
        var selector = el.nodeName.toLowerCase();
        if (el.id) {
            selector += '#' + el.id;
        } else {
            var sib = el, nth = 1;
            while (sib.nodeType === Node.ELEMENT_NODE && (sib = sib.previousSibling) && nth++);
            selector += ":nth-child("+nth+")";
        }
        path.unshift(selector);
        el = el.parentNode;
    }
    return path.join(" > ");
}

You could add a routine to check for unique elements in their corresponding context (like TITLE, BASE, CAPTION, etc.).

The answer above actually has a bug in it — the while loop breaks prematurely when it encounters a non-element node (e.g. a text node) resulting in an incorrect CSS selector.

Here's an improved version that fixes that problem plus:

• Stops when it encounters the first ancestor element with an id assigned to it
• Uses nth-of-type() to make the selectors more readable

    var cssPath = function(el) {
        if (!(el instanceof Element)) 
            return;
        var path = [];
        while (el.nodeType === Node.ELEMENT_NODE) {
            var selector = el.nodeName.toLowerCase();
            if (el.id) {
                selector += '#' + el.id;
                path.unshift(selector);
                break;
            } else {
                var sib = el, nth = 1;
                while (sib = sib.previousElementSibling) {
                    if (sib.nodeName.toLowerCase() == selector)
                       nth++;
                }
                if (nth != 1)
                    selector += ":nth-of-type("+nth+")";
            }
            path.unshift(selector);
            el = el.parentNode;
        }
        return path.join(" > ");
     }