Patent ID: 8001489

Claim:
A method of searching for a target element in a graphical user interface of a target computer program, the method comprising: receiving an element path identifier of the target element from a first software component; and using a hierarchical tree structure representation of the graphical user interface to locate the target element in a graphical user interface hierarchy based on the element path identifier, the locating the target element comprising: comparing appropriate fields of a data structure of the element path identifier to identifier data exposed by an element path root node within the hierarchical tree structure representation to determine a match; upon determining the match, proceeding to nodes in lower levels of the hierarchical tree structure representation to compare identifier information respectively exposed by the nodes in the lower levels of the hierarchical tree structure representation with appropriate fields of the data structure of the element path identifier to determine nodes that match until a node corresponding to the target element is found; determining that at least one node in the hierarchical tree structure representation is a root node of a strongly named branch portion of the hierarchical tree structure representation, the strongly named branch portion having a scope, wherein elements within the scope are guaranteed to be uniquely identifiable by corresponding named branch element identifiers and at least one non-sibling relationship exists among the nodes within the strongly named branch portion; and using the corresponding named branch element identifiers for determining nodes that match.