I am using selenium to test a web application, The ids and classes are always changing dynamically.So that I am not able to give correct identification, is it possible to get ids of the element in run time and is there any other method to handle this situation.
It depends on if ids are completely random or if there is some part of the id which remains the same. If yes, then cssSelector is the obvious choice
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("div[id*=somePart]");
where id* means id contains. If you cant use this approach you will have to track down your element using xpath or again cssSelectors. XPath example is here and CSS selector could look like this
By.cssSelector("boyd table input");
I would strongly recommend locating elements by XPath -- with the caveat that you make your XPaths robust and not just "copy" the xpath using your browser's developer tools. XPath is very easy to learn. You can use XPaths to walk up and down the DOM, and identify elements by their text, or their attributes.
For example, maybe you need to click a button that has a span that contains the text that appears on the button:
<div class="btn-row random-generated-number-1234897395">
...
<button id="random-generated-number-239487340924257">
<span>Click Here!</span>
</button>
...
</div>
You could then use an xpath like this:
//div[contains(#class, 'btn-row')]//button/span[text()='Click Here!']/..
(The /.. at the end walks back up from the span to the button.)
XPath is powerful and flexible and easy to learn. Use it when the ids and classes aren't reliable.
Related
There are few elements in an UI page without ID. I will download a particular version and then save all the current element tags and give to script as input, since few elements are not having id, this is causing script failures.
How can I locate the element without using Xpath.
Is there any simple way when there is no fixed id.
The short answer is "no." Sorry. All of the usual ways (by id, class, etc.) are relying on the same css information to locate elements. Xpath just shows all the ugly plumbing out in public. I don't think xpath has ever been described as "simple" but there is usually a way, using xpath, to find any element.
Xpath can be intimidating. Start with a plugin that will generate the xpath for you, once you click on an element. Usually the xpath generated will be extremely long and inefficient, but with practice you can see what can be trimmed and what is crucial. And to do that, also use a plugin that will "check" your xpath to see if it can find the element. Once you can find it (and ONLY the element you want) try trimming it to see if you can still find it with the abbreviated xpath locator.
reference ImageDon't be afraid of Xpaths. It's relatively easy to grab an Xpath using the Google Chrome browser. Navigate to your page and open Developer tools. Right-click on the particular tag for which you need an Xpath. Copy -> Xpath
I am trying to learn Selenium and am trying to write the xpath locator for the "About Us" link on the web page - www.hdfc.com
I can do it with link as:
link=About Us
I have tried the following and it works fine:
xpath=//a[text()='About Us']
but I wanted to write the locator using xpath axes so that its flexible enough. Can someone please point me in the right direction?
In the case you have put forward the best selector you could use is ID, this is because IDs (much like classnames etc) are not dependent on the structure of the document at all but more about the content or purpose of the element. in this case you would want something like:
driver.findElements(By.Id("ic-aboutUs");
Another thing you should be aware of in general is that xpath expressions are considered a worse way to identify your elements than the use of CSS selectors, especially if you are testing in IE as the xpath implementation there is not native and is very slow. I suggest reading over http://saucelabs.com/resources/selenium/css-selectors for a brief look at some examples and also maybe have aread of http://saucelabs.com/resources/selenium/selenium-xpath-marks-the-spot in order to see some of the negatives of using xpath.
Use the below xpaths to detect 'About Us'link in your web page
Below xpath was written by refering the immediate parent node
//li[#class='expanded']/child::span[text()='About Us']
This xpath was written by using the parent node of Menu bar(parent of whole menu items)
//ul[#class='menu hdfc-investor']/child::li[contains(.,'About Us')]
All the elements in the application which i am testing have dynanic ID's . The test always passes when i replay it without refreshing the page but as soon as i refresh the page, The Test Fails because Id's of all the elements changes randomly and selenium cannot match the recorded id's with the new ones .
I tried to use Xpath-position, It works for some objects but in case of Dropdown list and Buttons, it dosent work!
Can anyone please tell me how to find the Xpath (Meathods in JAVA or S*elence*) of an object OR How to create a new Locator Finder for Dropdown list and Buttons
I can show the properties (Inspected by Firebug) of the dropdown which is teasing me.
properties of Dropdown :
<div id="ext-gen1345" class="x-trigger-index-0 x-form-trigger x-form-arrow-trigger x-form-trigger-last x-unselectable" role="button" style="-moz-user-select: none;"></div>
properties of Dropdown*Choice*:
<ul>
<li class="x-boundlist-item" role="option">Rescue</li>
</ul>
Please search before posting, I have been answering this over and over.
ExtJS pages are hard to test, especially on finding elements.
Here are some of the tips I consider useful:
Don't ever use dynamically generated IDs. like (:id, 'ext-gen1345')
Don't ever use absolute/meaningless XPath, like //*[#class='someclass']/li/ul/li[2]/ul/li[2]/table/tbody/tr/td[2]/div
Take advantage of meaningful auto-generated partial ids and class names. (So you need show more HTML in your example, as I can make suggestions.)
For example, this ExtJS grid example: (:css, '.x-grid-view .x-grid-table') would be handy. If there are multiple of grids, try index them or locate the identifiable ancestor, like (:css, '#something-meaningful .x-grid-view .x-grid-table'). In your case, (:css, '#something-meaningful .x-form-arrow-trigger')
Take advantage of button's text.
For example, this ExtJS example: you can use XPath .//li[contains(#class, 'x-boundlist-item') and text()='Rescue']. However, this method is not suitable for CSS Selector or multi-language applications.
The best way to test is to create meaningful class names in the source code. If you don't have the access to the source code, please talk to your manager, using Selenium against ExtJS application should really be a developer's job. ExtJS provides cls and tdCls for custom class names, so you can add cls:'testing-btn-foo' in your source code, and Selenium can get it by (:css, '.x-panel .testing-btn-foo').
Other answers I made on this topic:
How to find ExtJS elements with dynamic id
How to find unique selectors for elements on pages with ExtJS for use with Selenium?
How to click on elements in ExtJS using Selenium?
Using class names in Watir
how to click on checkboxes on a pop-up window which doesn't have name, label
I would suggest you build a xpath from any of the parent of your DIV. you may get messed if there is no immediate parent node has such one.
example,
//*[#id='parentof div']/div
//*[#class='grand parent of div']/div/div
i did even something like this,
//*[#class='someclass']/li/ul/li[2]/ul/li[2]/table/tbody/tr/td[2]/div
But still, its not encouraged to do so.
In my application, it has several tabs, say 'AAA','ABC','ADF'; I need to automate the click on tab 'ABC'.
Those tabs have ids and they are 'tab1','tab2','tab3'. I can done this easily by using ids. but i don't want to use this because those tabs will change time to time. so I need to use the name in the tab, because it is unique.
Below is my tag:
<a id="tab2" class="current" onclick="expandcontent('sc2', this);" href="#"> ABC </a>
If this is the case, you will probably need to fall back to XPath and perform text-based searches, for instance:
//a[text()='ABC']
Though, I'd advise you work with your development team to have consistent ID's. Text based matching is fine, but when you start to use older browsers you'll notice it really really slows down the tests.
However, you can also use the .LinkText and .PartialLinkText selectors in your language API's - there should be an implementation of those selectors in each API (C#, Ruby, Python etc). The catch here is this will be for a (anchor) elements only. However, providing that is the only type of elements this needs to be done by, you can get away with using this instead of XPath.
As Arran mentioned, you are likely best off searching for the tab names using XPath but, you can also use FindBy as well. An example of this would be:
#FindBy(css=<the CSS value for the tab>) private WebElement pageTab2;
#FindBy(id="tab2") private WebElement pageTab2;
I can only agree with what Arran also mentioned about your developers using more relevant naming conventions as well. The easier they make your job, the more you can do to make their lives easier too.
Simplest answer will be Use..."link=ABC" or link=" ABC " (it there are leading and trailing spaces).
The simplest approach would be to use X paths to find your tabs.
When you are starting out there are two helpful tools to help you find X paths. Download Mozilla Firefox and get these two add-ons:
Web Driver Element Locator-After downloading you can right click a web element and select X path.
Selenium IDE-This is a recorder and will give you the X paths or CSS of each web element you interact with.
I would recommend starting with these tools to help you out since you are just starting out.
As for your question:
I would recommend using what #Arran said...
//a[text()='ABC']
'a'-will search the entire page for whatever text you have in single quotes ''
If you Right Click the element or Tab and select Inspect. You will then be looking through the back-end of the page for classes or div that help you identify each different element.
xpath=//a[contains(#class,"current") and contains(#text,"ABC")]
I spend hours already trying to find the way to find the Element using Selenium WebDriver. I assume I need to use driver.findElement(By.xpath("")), but I am not quite sure how.
I somehow need to find and click on "clickon" element. The problem is that part of that element is changing (see screenshot) I need to pick up from the file and putted into the xpath.
I would appreciate any help.
We have been rigorously searching for automated functional testing solutions recently, and we began with Selenium. The entire reason we decided to search for other solutions was that our application also has dynamic IDs with no other obvious XPath mechanism to identify them. Selenium is unable to identify these elements on the page without some additional knowledge, just as you would be unable to identify these elements on the page if you didn't already know what they are.
If you are controlling the DOM creation, consider adding a unique ID or class to this element.
We recently came across eggPlant from testPlant, and it is an interesting approach to functional testing. It's essentially image based. Other viable solutions are Ranorex or HP's QTP or SmartBear's TestComplete.
You can use xpath. If the div class is constant, you can use something like:
driver.findElement(By.xpath("list-row field-item")).click();
To view the xpath, you can install firefox plugin called 'xpath checker' found here and right click on the dom element and click 'View Xpath' option to get the xpath of the element and then you can use that xpath in your code.
Or you can even use regex in the xpath which is suitable for the similar problems. Xpath with regex is really powerful.
It seems that you want to click the div that has the on click attribute that contains certain text that doesn't change, ignoring the part that does. In that case, use an xpath like this:
//div[contains(#onclick, '/challenge/index/rfp_id/')]
This will select the first div with an onclick attribute with a value containing /challenge/index/rfp_id.