selenium clear() command doesn't clear the element - selenium

Question

I have been writing selenium scripts for a while in Java. I encountered a very weird issue today. Here is the issue:
I cleared a text field using webelement.clear() method, later while executing next command (click event), the text area I had previously cleared, is now populated with previously filled value.
Here is the code snippet:
mobileNumField.get(0).clear();
Thread.sleep(4500);
emailAddress.get(0).click();
emailAddress.get(0).clear();
Thread.sleep(4500);
emailAddress.get(0).sendKeys(Keys.TAB);

Answer 1

I don't know the exact reason for your element keeping its value, but you can try an alternative text clearance by sending 'Ctrl+A+Delete' key combination using sendKeys method of the element's object:
emailAddress.sendKeys(Keys.chord(Keys.CONTROL,"a", Keys.DELETE));

Answer 2

It's possible that the fields you're trying to fill has autocomplete attribute set to on. [Reference]
If clear() works when the line executes then it's safe to say that this is not a webdriver specific issue.
It would help if you can show the html snippet of the page section you're working on.
Possible areas of debugging:
forcefully remove autocomplete attribute on page load using java script executor
turn off autocomplete setting on the driver level. I believe the solution would vary depending on the driver being used.
Good luck!
PS: Those Thread.sleep(s) are not advisable.

Answer 3

I solved it by adding a function to my BasePage to clear fields by a given WebElement.
public void clearWebField(WebElement element){
while(!element.getAttribute("value").equals("")){
element.sendKeys(Keys.BACK_SPACE);
}
}
You can also implement this method in the page that experiencing the problem.

Answer 4

I am using Mac and the following code helps also
public static void macCleanHack(WebElement element) {
String inputText = element.getAttribute("value");
if( inputText != null ) {
for(int i=0; i<inputText.length();i++) {
element.sendKeys(Keys.BACK_SPACE);
}
}
}

Answer 5

I had a similar issue with a text field that used an auto-complete plugin. I had to explicitly clear the attribute value as well as do a SendKeys. I created an extension method to encapsulate the behaviour, hopefully the snippet below will help:
public static void SendKeysAutocomplete(this IWebElement element, string fieldValue)
{
element.SendKeys(fieldValue);
element.SetAttribute("value", fieldValue);
}
public static void SetAttribute(this IWebElement element, string attributeName, string attributeValue)
{
var driver = WebDriverHelper.GetDriverFromScenarioContext();
var executor = (IJavaScriptExecutor)driver;
executor.ExecuteScript("arguments[0].setAttribute(arguments[1], arguments[2]);", element, attributeName, attributeValue);
}

Answer 6

Faced a similar problem. The input field is cleared but the error message is not updated. It seems that some input fields work correctly only if you enter and delete a character:
element.sendKeys(text);
element.sendKeys(Keys.SPACE, Keys.BACK_SPACE);

Answer 7

Hope this helps to clear the field and then sendKeys() the needed value
while (!inputField.getAttribute("value").equals("")) {
inputField.sendKeys(Keys.BACK_SPACE);
}
inputField.sendKeys("your_value");

Answer 8

In some webforms clearing the field followed by .sendKeys() won't work because it keeps repopulating it with some autofill value (in my case it was due to an onfocus attribute function of an input element). Action chains didn't help, the only thing that worked for me was replacing the value attribute directly with javascript:
In Java:
driver.executeScript("document.getElementById('elementID').value='new value'");
In Python (nearly identical):
driver.execute_script("document.getElementById('elementID').value='new value'")
For more on the Java version of this solution see this question.