I'm trying to get an xpath so I can click a link as per href below:
<div id="viewIFL" style="">
<div class="moneycentrallink">
Track your cash in one place with
Money Central
</div>
</div>
When I use the below in ChroPath:
//a[contains(text(),'Money Central')]
It returns 2 elements matching for xpath="1" and xpath="2".
I then tried:
//a[contains(text(),'Money Central') and #xpath='2']
and at first it resolved to just 1 element found but when I tried searching again it returned 0 elements found. Also this does not work via Selenium either (returns unable to find element).
Any ideas what's going on and how I can find the unique xpath to clickable element? Thanks
Don't use xpath attribute in your xpath as ChroPath adds the xpath attribute in element to tell the user what is matching occurrence of that element. For example- If ChroPath added xpath=5 i.e. this element is the 5th for the corresponding xpath.
For your scenario, please inspect the element and see what ChroPath gives the relative xpath.
Also you can try //div[contains(text(),'Track your cash')]//a[contains(text(),'Money Central')]
Your problem is badly formulated.
There is always a unique path to an element of the form *[1]/*[4]/*[1]/*[2]. The problem is that this path isn't very useful because it only works if you know exactly what is in the document, and if you knew exactly what was in the document, you wouldn't need XPath to find it.
So you're actually looking for an XPath that will work on a set of possible documents in which some parts are known (fixed) and others are unknown (variable). To find an XPath that works on every document in that set, you need to define what is known and what is unknown. Looking at one sample document isn't going to tell you that.
Related
I need to detect via xpath an element (image with href) but i know a part of href only
This is the html
<img src="//user/banners/16/08/1614708.gif" alt="AAA" data-tip="BBB" currentitem="false" class="" width="468" height="60">
I know the id 123456 (part of href)
I tried this xpath that recognize element with a part of href but working in text link only
xpath=//a[contains(#href, "123456")]
How can i detect the element using a part of href only ?
I need xpath only please.
You need get /img in //a where href attribute contains() or ends-with() your id
This is XPATH that you need. At least i would use this XPATH in this situation
//a[ends-with(#href, 'your-id-here')]/img
You can use regular expresions. Something like
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[starts-with (#name,'Tut')]")
or as you described
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[contains(#name,'sel')]").
Be awere of one thing, do not use double quotes, for the string you are searching as atribute value. Use a single quote like I previously described.
I have the below dom structure:
<h3 class="popover-title">
<div class="popup-title">
<div class="title-txt">Associated Elements  (5)</div>
</div>
</h3>
I am trying to write an xpath which will identify the title "Associated Elements" under h3 tag.
When my xpath is
//div[contains(#class, popover)]//h3[contains(.,'Associated Elements')]
the element is identified.
However when my xpath is
//div[contains(#class, popover)]//h3[contains(text(),'Associated Elements')]
the element is not identified.
As per my understanding the dot(.) is a replacement for text(), but then why does it not identify the element when I use the text() function.
However, for another dom structure:
<h3 class="popover-title">
<a class="btn-popover" href="#">x</a>
"Associated Elements"
</h3>
The xpath :
//div[contains(#class, popover)]//h3[contains(text(),'Associated Elements')]
&
//div[contains(#class, popover)]//h3[contains(.,'Associated Elements')]
works fine.
Can someone please explain the behaviour of dot(.) under both these scenarios?
Is there a better way to write an xpath that holds good for both the exmaples? Please suggest.
As selenium is tagged so this answer would be based on xpath-1.0 and the associated XML Path Language (XPath) Version 1.0 specifications.
contains(string, string)
The function boolean contains(string, string) returns true if the first argument string contains the second argument string, and otherwise returns false. As an example:
//h3[contains(.,'Associated Elements')]
Text Nodes
Character data is grouped into text nodes. As much character data as possible is grouped into each text node. The string-value of a text node is the character data. A text node always has at least one character of data. In the below example, text() selects all text node children of the context node:
//h3[text()='Associated Elements']
In your usecase, within the HTML the text Associated Elements  (5) have which is alternatively referred to as a fixed space or hard space, NBSP (non-breaking space) used in programming to create a space in a line that cannot be broken by word wrap. Within HTML, allows you to create multiple spaces that are visible on a web page and not only in the source code.
Analyzing your code trials
Your first code trial with:
//h3[contains(.,'Associated Elements')]
locates the element as it successfully identifies with partial text Associated Elements
Your second code trial with:
//h3[contains(text(),'Associated Elements')]
fails as the element contains some more characters e.g. in addition to the text Associated Elements.
Reference
You can find a couple of relevant discussions in:
How to locate the button element using Selenium through Python
What does contains(., 'some text') refers to within xpath used in Selenium
While fetching all links,Ignore logout link from the loop and continue navigation in selenium java
The text() in contains(text(),'Associated Elements') is a selector that matches all of the text nodes that are children of the context node - it returns a node-set. That node-set is converted to string and passed to the contains() function.
text() isn't a function but a node test. It is used to select all text-node children of the context node. So, if the context node is an element named x, then text() selects all text-node children of x.
When you use contains(., 'Associated Elements') only an individual text node is passed to the function and it is able to uniquely match the text.
Note: copied and edited from this and this post.
I am trying to find an unique xpath for the below element, please advice if there are any better xpaths to make it for general text as I have currently given for that specific name.
<td tabindex="4" style="text-align: left;" title="name" class="">Name</td>
xpath i am using: //td[#title='name']
here if the name is changed with something else in the code, this wouldn't work, could someone help me identify unique xpath which works in general for any text. Thanks!
You can concatenate (using and / or) multiple attributes of element to find the element precisely .
By.xpath("//td[#title= 'name' and contains(text(), 'Name')]")
However we need to see more details of the code and your DOM of page to find element.
There will always be some element which will never change in the page(like name of table) using that as a relative point ,we can refer to the row of the table.
the simplest way to find the XPath of any element is to go to the developer options and select the markup of the element you want XPath of.
Right Click -> Copy -> XPath
I believe this is the simplest way. And you will also where you are doing wrong.
Screenshot attached for your reference.
I have used the general syntax - "//td[text()='{}']" and passing the name parameter when i define a method so that it won't be specific to one and others can test using the same locator with their name changed when someone else uses the testcase.
Thanks everyone for your response!
Trying to find link element of "a href". Snippet code:
<div id="contact-link">
Contact us
</div>
I managed doing it by:
Driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//*[#title='Contact Us']")).Click();
2.Driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//a[#href='http://automationpractice.com/index.php?controller=contact']")).Click();
3.Driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//*[text()='Contact us']")).Click();
Could someone tell me how can I get by firstly getting parent div and then find what's inside that div (by going from the top to the bottom)
So basically, with xpath, you are looking to replicate the HTML structure. What you need is:
//div[#id='contact-link']/a
This is going to return the a href under the div. Assuming its just 1, thats the way to go. If you want to go a little further, try:
//div[#id='contact-link']/a[#title='Contact Us']
Although you have already accepted the answer , I would like to highlight some point about Xpath and cssSelector. You should always pick cssSelector over Xpath :
Here is cssSelector for your requirement:
div[id='contact-link']>a
Code :
Driver.FindElement(By.CssSelector("div[id='contact-link']>a")).Click();
For more about cssSelector : https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_selectors.asp
For Difference between Xpath and cssSelector, you can read it from this SO post: Diff between Xpath and cssSelector
I have this code for xpath and html:
<a class="WatchButton inicon" rel="nofollow" data-productid="111124">
xpath=/html/body/div[2]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[8]/a
How can I get the data-productid value?
Just add #data-productid to the xpath expression:
/html/body/div[2]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[8]/a/#data-productid
Note that the xpath expression you have is very fragile since it depends on a bunch of elements and their relevant positions. Try to rely on the element's attributes or one of it's containers - look for id and class attributes. For example:
//a[contains(#class, "WatchButton")]/#data-productid
This gets the first link anywhere on a page that contains WatchButton class and retrieves it's data-productid attribute value.
* Sharing the link to the web page or showing the complete HTML could help to provide you with a more reliable xpath expression.