How to click on the table cell for particular text - ruby

Question

The following is the DOM details:
<div id: "abc_440"
<table class = "listtable" >
<tbody>
<tr>
<td id = "someid" >
<td class = 'someclass_item"> This is Text </td>
<td class = 'someclass_button">
< a > Add </a>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
I need to click on 'Add' for particular text at "This is Text". I have to use div with ID (abc_440)to locate the corresponding table as there are may divs with this same dom layout. but index at div ID (for example 440) keeps changing to random number. How do I handle it in general ?
Please help.

Answer 1

I think that what you want to do is very similar to the previous Watir question.
Given that the id is randomly generated, it does not sounds like a good way of finding the link. You will likely need to use the text of the same row.
Assuming that the "This is Text" is unique (as you said you want to find the Add link for it), you can find that td, go to the parent row and then get the link.
b.td(:text => 'This is Text').parent.link.click
If you need to ensure that the text is in the second column, then you can do:
b.trs.find{ |tr|
tr.td.exists? and tr.td(:index => 1).text == 'This is Text'
}.link.click
The tr.td.exists? is added in case some of your rows do not have any tds (example a header row), which would cause an exception when checking the second criteria.

Answer 2

Don't mix quotes in HTML tags. id: doesn't work. <td>s should rarely be empty. The Add button should be a button, not an <a>nchor element. Buttons only work in <form>s.
<form id="abc_440" action='someURI'> <!-- The handler for the button. -->
<table class="listtable">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td id = "someid">
<!-- What goes here? -->
</td>
<td class='someclass_item'>
This is Text
</td>
<td class='someclass_button'>
<button name='add'>Add</button>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</form>
You should be able to find the button through its name attribute, add, and through the form's id attribute, abc_440. Who generates the ids?
Once you have the problem of finding the add button solved, and figuring out where the form's id comes from, please then stop using tables for formatting. There's no need for that. Learn about <form>s, <fieldset>s, <legend>s, and <label>s. I doubt you need the *some_id* part, the text part should probably be a <label>, and you can use CSS to format your <label>s as:
label {
width: 150px;
float: left;
}
fieldset p {
clear: left;
}