I have the following HTML. I need to get the XPath using DOWN as a keyword.
<span>
"DEVICE: some random values that I'm not bothered about"
<span class="c-emoji_plain_text">:sensor_1000_4_1:</span>
"/interfaces/:/interfaces/:mib2d], TRIGGER: interface_status, MESSAGE:
$interface_name is DOWN"
</span>
The problem I'm facing here is, when I use the following XPath, it's not recognized:
//span[contains(text(),'DOWN')]
I see that the text above child span is used but not the text below it.
Kindly help.
Try to replace
//span[contains(text(),'DOWN')]
with
//span[contains(.,'DOWN')]
to select required span node
Note that such selector can match several elements. To make it more specific you can use
//span[span and contains(.,'DOWN')]
This will match span that contains span child node as well as "DOWN" substring
Also
//span[contains(text()[2],'DOWN')]
should do the trick
Related
Using Selenium 4.8 in .NET 6, I have the following html structure to parse.
<ul class="search-results">
<li>
<a href=//to somewhere>
<span class="book-desc">
<div class="book-title">some title</div>
<span class="book-author">some author</span>
</span>
</a>
</li>
</ul>
I need to find and click on the right li where the book-title matches my variable input (ideally ignore sentence case too) AND the book author also matches my variable input. So far I'm not getting that xpath syntax correct. I've tried different variations of something along these lines:
var matchingBooks = driver.FindElements(By.XPath($"//li[.//span[#class='book-author' and text()='{b.Authors}' and #class='book-title' and text()='{b.Title}']]"));
then I check if matchingBooks has a length before clicking on the first element. But matchingBooks is always coming back as 0.
class="book-author" belongs to span while class="book-title" belongs to div child element.
Also it cane be extra spaces additionally to the text, so it's better to use contains instead of exact equals validation.
So, instead of "//li[.//span[#class='book-author' and text()='{b.Authors}' and #class='book-title' and text()='{b.Title}']]" please try this:
"//li[.//span[#class='book-author' and(contains(text(),'{b.Authors}'))] and .//div[#class='book-title' and(contains(text(),'{b.Title}'))]]"
UPD
The following XPath should work. This is a example specific XPath I tried and it worked "//li[.//span[#class='book-author' and(contains(text(),'anima'))] and .//div[#class='book-title' and(contains(text(),'Coloring'))]]" for blood of the fold search input.
Also, I guess you should click on a element inside the li, not on the li itself. So, it's try to click the following element:
"//li[.//span[#class='book-author' and(contains(text(),'{b.Authors}'))] and .//div[#class='book-title' and(contains(text(),'{b.Title}'))]]//a"
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'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.
I am having an issue trying to find a node that doesnot have text but their child has an specific text.
Here is an example of the html code:
<strong>
This is not
<span>the one</span>
</strong>
<strong>
<span>the one</span>
</strong>
So I need to find the second strong.. but the xpath that I am using is this one:
//strong/span[text()='the one']
This brings me the two elements ... but I need the second one.
I tried something like this:
//strong[not(text())]/span[text()='the one']
but it didn't work..
Any idea how to accomplish this?
Try this one:
//strong[not(normalize-space(text()))]/span[text()='the one']
Use Index to identify the position. But note that here indices start from 1.
(//strong/span[text()='the one'])[2]
DOM:
<span class="item">Does not <span class="highlight">match</span>.</span>
<span class="item">Also not <span class="highlight">match</span>ing.</span>
<span class="item"><span class="highlight">match</span></span>
Issue:
I've got a list of items. When I type into a text box, it eliminates items that do not match, and highlights the ones that do inside a /span. The issue is that if I type something that matches multiple things, I want to select the EXACT String, and not the ones that partially match (see above DOM example... the ideal match would be the 3rd one).
So, is my only hope here to go one by one until I find my perfect match, or is there something else that I've been missing?
You are trying to find a span that has no text, with an inner span that has some highlighted text. Here is an XPath selector for that:
//span[#class='item'][not(text())]/span[#class='highlight'][text()='match']