Robotframework - appium testing for hybrid android app (Angular) - xpath

Question

I have a hard time testing our hybrid app with Robotframework tests using appium library. The application has 2 contexts:
Native (android)
Web (Angular)
The problem that I Have is when I'm in the web context and I'm trying to use XPath locators to locate elements that contain some text using the expression: Click Element //*[contains(#text,some_containing_text)] I would have the result of the root element which contains the element that I'm trying to locate. So in the end my test is clicking all the wrong way then it should be clicking because of that locator returning the root element of the HTML page.
This functionality of locating elements by just saying "Click element that contains something like this" is working with the selenium library on our Web application. But my question is why (or what I'm doing wrong) it doesn't work with appium Robotframework library.
Using appium 1.6.3.
I'm searching for span with the text Ukončit
<app-attendance-detail class="ng-star-inserted">
<div class="py-4">
<div class="container-fluid">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-12">
<div class="mb-4">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-12"><h4 class="fs-14 mb-1 font-weight-bold">úterý, 09:56:00 26.07.2022</h4>
</div>
</div>
<h4 class="fs-14 fs-md-16 mb-4 font-weight-bold text-gray-light ng-star-inserted">
<span>Začátek dnešní směny od</span> dnes v 9:45 </h4>
<div class="e-timer text-gray ng-star-inserted">00:10h</div>
<a href="#" title="#" preventdefault=""
class="btn btn-primary w-100 text-uppercase font-weight-bold px-9 mt-6 ng-star-inserted"><i
class="icon icon-stop position-relative bottom-1 mr-1"></i><span translate=""
ng-reflect-translate="">Ukončit</span></a>
<div class="row row-xs mt-2 ng-star-inserted">
<div class="col-6 px-1"><a href="#" title="#" preventdefault=""
class="btn btn-white border-primary-dark text-primary w-100 text-uppercase font-weight-bold px-9"><i
class="icon icon-pause position-relative bottom-1 mr-1"></i><span>Začátek<br>přestávky</span></a>
</div>
<div class="col-6 px-1"><a href="#" title="#" preventdefault=""
class="btn btn-white border-primary-dark text-primary w-100 text-uppercase font-weight-bold px-9"><span>Odchod<br>jiné</span></a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mt-4"><h4 translate="" class="fs-14 fs-md-16 mb-2 font-weight-bold"
ng-reflect-translate="">Docházka</h4><a title="#" target="_blank"
class="d-block bg-white px-3 border-radius-sm box-shadow-sm mb-2 text-gray ng-star-inserted"
href="https://h5tws.cezdata.corp:44320/sap/bc/bsp/sap/zjd_dovol/overview.htm">
<div class="row">
<div class="col py-3 pb-3">
<div translate="" class="fs-16 font-weight-bold text-uppercase" ng-reflect-translate="">
Žádost o dovolenou
</div>
</div>
<div
class="col col-xs py-2 text-center border-left border-gray-light d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center">
<div class="text-gray"><i class="icon icon-forward"></i></div>
</div>
</div>
</a><a title="#" target="_blank"
class="d-block bg-white px-3 border-radius-sm box-shadow-sm mb-2 text-gray ng-star-inserted"
href="https://h5tws.cezdata.corp:44320/sap/bc/bsp/sap/zjd_doli/selection_screen.htm">
<div class="row">
<div class="col py-3 pb-3">
<div translate="" class="fs-16 font-weight-bold text-uppercase" ng-reflect-translate="">
Docházkový list
</div>
</div>
<div
class="col col-xs py-2 text-center border-left border-gray-light d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center">
<div class="text-gray"><i class="icon icon-forward"></i></div>
</div>
</div>
</a></div>
<div class="mt-4"><h4 translate="" class="fs-14 fs-md-16 mb-2 font-weight-bold"
ng-reflect-translate="">Záznamy</h4><a routinglink="attendance/records"
href="#" title="#"
class="d-block bg-white px-3 border-radius-sm box-shadow-sm mb-2 text-gray"
ng-reflect-routing-link="attendance/records">
<div class="row">
<div class="col py-3 pb-3">
<div translate="" class="fs-16 font-weight-bold text-uppercase" ng-reflect-translate="">
Přehled záznamů
</div>
</div>
<div
class="col col-xs py-2 text-center border-left border-gray-light d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center">
<div class="text-gray"><i class="icon icon-forward"></i></div>
</div>
</div>
</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<app-modal-dialog styleclass="shadow" ng-reflect-style-class="shadow" ng-reflect-show-header="false"
ng-reflect-dismissable-mask="false" ng-reflect-dialog-id="4">
<p-dialog class="p-element ng-tns-c30-7 ng-star-inserted" ng-reflect-style-class="shadow"
ng-reflect-visible="false" ng-reflect-modal="true" ng-reflect-dismissable-mask="false"
ng-reflect-transition-options="0ms" ng-reflect-show-header="false" ng-reflect-draggable="true"
ng-reflect-resizable="true" ng-reflect-close-on-escape="true" ng-reflect-base-z-index="1050">
</p-dialog>
</app-modal-dialog>
<app-modal-dialog styleclass="shadow" ng-reflect-style-class="shadow" ng-reflect-show-header="false"
ng-reflect-dialog-id="5" ng-reflect-dismissable-mask="false">
<p-dialog class="p-element ng-tns-c30-8 ng-star-inserted" ng-reflect-style-class="shadow"
ng-reflect-visible="false" ng-reflect-modal="true" ng-reflect-dismissable-mask="false"
ng-reflect-transition-options="0ms" ng-reflect-show-header="false" ng-reflect-draggable="true"
ng-reflect-resizable="true" ng-reflect-close-on-escape="true" ng-reflect-base-z-index="1050">
</p-dialog>
</app-modal-dialog>
</div>
This is the keyword in Robot testcase
Attendance_action
[Arguments] ${action}
Click element //*[contains(#text, "${action}")]
Sleep 2s

Answer 1

Thanks for updating the question to include the details of how the XPath is called. It seems to me that you will end up with an expression like //*[contains(#text, "Ukončit")]; I would not expect that to return anything because the expression #text is a refererence to an attribute with the name text. It's not a reference to the textual content of an element.
I suspect what you actually meant to enter was an expression like this:
//*[text()[contains(., "Ukončit")]]
Translation: any element which contains a text node which itself contains the string "Ukončit". That should return a single span element:
<span translate="" ng-reflect-translate="">Ukončit</span>