Finding XPath on Selenium - selenium

please help me.
Actually I want to find element locator in selenium using XPath since the id is auto-generate (the ID always changed when the page refresh). but the XPath always changed too. here is the XPath locator :
html/body/div[4]/div/div[1]/div/table[1]/tbody[2]/tr[1]/td/div/nobr
html/body/div[4]/div/div[1]/div/table[1]/tbody[2]/tr[1]/td/div/nobr
html/body/div[15]/div/div[1]/div/table[1]/tbody[2]/tr[1]/td/div/nobr
html/body/div[7]/div/div[1]/div/table[1]/tbody[2]/tr[1]/td/div/nobr
Actually I already try to use :
html/body/div[class='scrollingMenu']/div/div[1]/div/table[1]/tbody[2]/tr[1]/td/div/nobr
the div itself has unique classname scrollingMenu. but it is not working. it always give the error element not found.

You can use element's id in your XPath as follow:
Suppose id="constantPart-generatedPart12345", then XPath is
//*[contains(#id, "constantPart-")]
PS. If this not works, update your question with HTML for target element, so I can edit XPath appropriatelly

Open the page in Google Chrome and use F12 to test your xPath before implementing it - has saved me a lot of time

Related

WebElement is identified through xpath in the developer console but the element wont be identified through selenium findElement method

The html element Im trying to locate is the "Shared" link.
I wrote a dynamic xpath to locate the element and it shows as the element was identified in the developer console.
But when i use the xpath that i wrote in the developer console to locate the element using selenium, it does not locate the element.
The method i used to check if it locates the element is shown below.
I could not figure out why this issue occurs, Is it because of a issue in the xpath that i have written or because of another issue?
Code you can try out is :
new WebDriverWait(driver,10).until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.xpath(" your Xpath ")));
driver.findElement(By.xpath("your Xpath")).click();
The Xpath you have written would work if only one title is present on current page.
driver.find_elements doesn't have attribute to click() so use driver.findElement instead of Elements

How to handle dynamic id

I am trying to explore log In button xpath with this site https://www.componence.com/login, by just recording and play back.Then I tried to get it through firepath and chrome browser default xpath copier.
But it looks like every time submit button xpath get changed with page load. I got following xpath for "Sign IN" button.
.//*[#id='yui_patched_v3_11_0_1_1487250469606_202']
.//*[#id='yui_patched_v3_11_0_1_1487251369606_202']
.//*[#id='yui_patched_v3_11_0_1_1487250229606_202']
.//*[#id='yui_patched_v3_11_0_1_1487254369606_202']
Can you please help me to retrieve correct xpath of Sign IN button which I can use with selenium IDE?
You can use below XPath to handle dynamic id:
//button[starts-with(#id, "yui_patched_v3_11_0_1_")]
But better solution is to use text content of element:
//button[normalize-space(text())="Sign In"]
I will have to disagree with the second statement of #Andersson, since it will work for .com but not for .nl.
As I see the site has a second language and my opinion is to avoid using selectors based on text on a multi-language environment.
Also as I see the id seems does not have a meaningful value, in this case try to identify a unique parent section and go from there.
One option for css/xpath would be:
css: form.sign-in-form button
xpath: //form[contains(#class, 'sign-in-form')]//button

Selenium Webdriver Onlink Text

What command in webdriver should I use to make sure it clicks the specific text i.e Last Month
the code is
<div class="dt_padded_medium_div">
<a onclick="setLastMonth()" href="#">Last Month</a>
I tried xpath by using firepath but still doesnt work
it was
//*[#id='block-2']/div/div[3]/table/tbody/tr[1]/td[5]
I used
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[#id='block-2']/div/div[3]/table/tbody/tr[1]/td[5]")).click();
but still didnt work, am I missing something?
Update:
Got the Code working guys, thanks for the help!
If there is only one 'a' element in the page with this text, try this XPath:
//a[text()='Last Month']
If there are more than one element, please, post the full HTML tree else we're unable to write a xpath without know the tag path and ensure it will work
Are you sure your xPath is correct?
Install FirePath on Firefox and experiment with your xPath as on screenshot below.
Also, that does look like a long and brittle xPath. Look up xPath cheat sheets to learn how to make your xPath more robust.
In your case I would imagine something like:
//*[#id='block-2']/descendant::a[text()='Last Month']
(get the element with a particular ID, then search for an <a></a> in that element, no matter how deep, with a particular text)
In your question, you have used a "id" that is not shown in your code, where is #id='block-2'. It is possible for you to have used the wrong id. For us to help you, can you please provide the whole HTML code?
What I can suggest based on the information you have provided is:
Making sure the Xpath you have provided is unique, there is an add-on for Firefox called Firebug you can use. It will help you find out the xpath you are after fast and easy. What you need to do is basically:
download firefox and install it;
download firebug add-on and install it to firefox;
you will notice there is a small bug symbol to the top right of your tool bar, please enable it;
you will see a console pops out, click on inspection button and click on any web element you want to inspect and its html code will be highlighted in the console;
right click on the highlighted code and choose to copy its xpath to clipboard. This way you will never get your xpath wrong.
Here is a quick tutorial:
http://www.wikihow.com/Find-XPath-Using-Firebug
P.S. There are more than one way to locate a webelement, please consider using the following options as well:
Css selector
class name
id
This link will direct you to an awesome cheat cheet.
http://scraping.pro/res/xpath-cheat/xpath_css_dom_recipes.pdf
Hope it helps.
Please try to use below code to click on the text Last Month
driver.findElement(By.xpath(".//a[text()='Last Month']")).click();
Hope this helps.
You can use below code to click on the link containing the text 'Last Month'
driver.findElement(By.linkText("Last Month")).click();
First of all make sure that your xpath works correctly, try to use more specific xpath other than just td[5] or smthn like that, for example above could be like:
//div[#class='dt_padded_medium_div']/a[#href] - meaning, we need to find <div> element with specific parent and within it <a> element that has href property
There are a few possibilities.
If you're site doesn´t get rewritten to much you could just go for the link name via
driver.findElement(By.linkName("Last Month");
You could also go for any of the attributes if your site is subject of many rewrites like this and just put "href" and "#" or "onclick" and "setLastMonth()" as arguments when calling it.
static WebElement getLink(String Attribute, String Value /*String ItemText*/){
List<WebElement> Elements = driver.findElements(By.tagName("a"));
for(int Counter = 0, Counter < Elements.size(); Counter++){
if(Elements.get(Counter).getAttribute(Attribute).contains(Value) /* && Elements.get(Counter).getText().equals(ItemText){
return Elements.get(Counter);
}
}
return null;
}
If you remove the comments it will go completely sure and check for the Attributes and the displayed text.

Selenium IDE, XPath not working on specific page

I'm trying to select element on webapp by using Xpath expression. I've choosen page with maps.
Link for page: http://www.openstreetmap.org/.
I've thought I know Xpath, but nothing works here. For example, I need to search for any city. Xpath to search box is:
//input[#id='query']
It should work but not. Can somebody explain me why Xpaths are blocked on that page?
Just use the option By.ID to find the element, If you have an ID there's no need to use XPATH.
In the IDE just type "query" in the target field.

Locating elements in selenium IDE

I have tried to locate button in my web app using xpath but it changes automatically each time I open selenium IDE. Is there any other way to locate it except using xpath or position? can I locate it using class name? If yes then how can I do it?
You can use xpath to find element by class name.
//*[#class='someClass']
where, someClass is the class name of your element.
Since it is your webapp, consider adding an id or a name to uniquely identify the element. It also makes the xpaths easier to write as you don't need to consider the possibility where you might be grabbing too many elements.
Answer - If by default recorded xpath are not working for your application, then you can define your own xpath for those components which should remain same throughout execution.
Please refer below URL which shows ways to develop userdefined xpath :-
http://docs.seleniumhq.org/docs/appendix_locating_techniques.jsp
Use a CSS selector. This site really helped me: http://saucelabs.com/resources/selenium/css-selectors
if it has an id on it you can just say "id=yourid"
for css it could be something like this: "css=button[class*='yourclass']" <-- that says it's a button, and that in class it contains yourclass.