I've been hacking away at this one for hours and I just can't figure it out. Using XPath to find text values is tricky and this problem has too many moving parts.
I have a webpage with a large table and a section in this table contains a list of users (assignees) that are assigned to a particular unit. There is nearly always multiple users assigned to a unit and I need to make sure a particular user is assigned to any of the units on the table. I've used XPath for nearly all of my selectors and I'm half way there on this one. I just can't seem to figure out how to use contains with text() in this context.
Here's what I have so far:
//td[#id='unit']/span [text()='asdfasdfasdfasdfasdf (Primary); asdfasdfasdfasdfasdf, asdfasdfasdfasdf; 456, 3456'; testuser]
The XPath Query above captures all text in the particular section I am looking at, which is great. However, I only need to know if testuser is in that section.
text() gets you a set of text nodes. I tend to use it more in a context of //span//text() or something.
If you are trying to check if the text inside an element contains something you should use contains on the element rather than the result of text() like this:
span[contains(., 'testuser')]
XPath is pretty good with context. If you know exactly what text a node should have you can do:
span[.='full text in this span']
But if you want to do something like regular expressions (using exslt for example) you'll need to use the string() function:
span[regexp:test(string(.), 'testuser')]
Related
I'm generating an XML report, using the JDF standard for PDFs going into a printing workflow.
There are 3 "DPart" sections, and I can use an xPath query to recognize them, but I want to grab the "Separation" attribute of each "cip4:Part". I can also get a query to find that, but it does not distinguish between the multiple "DPart"s.
<DPart End="0" ID="0003" ParentRef="0002" Start="0">
<DPM>
<cip4:Root>
<cip4:Intent cip4:ProductType="ProductPart"/>
<cip4:Production>
<cip4:Resource>
<cip4:Part Separation="K1"/>
<cip4:Color cip4:ActualColorName="Black" cip4:ColorType="Normal">
</cip4:Resource>
<cip4:Resource>
<cip4:Part Separation="S1"/>**
<cip4:Color cip4:ActualColorName="Dieline" cip4:ColorType="Normal">
</cip4:Resource>
<cip4:Resource>
<cip4:ColorantControl ColorantOrder="K1 S1" ColorantParams="K1 S1"/>
</cip4:Resource>
<cip4:Resource>
<eg:InkCoverage>
<eg:InkCov eg:Mm2="0.000000" eg:Pct="0.000000" eg:Separation="K1"/>
<eg:InkCov eg:Mm2="182.337538" eg:Pct="0.721209" eg:Separation="S1"/>
</eg:InkCoverage>
</cip4:Resource>
</cip4:Production>
</cip4:Root>
</DPM>
</DPart>
I want to do something like:
/DPM[2]/*[name ()='cip4:Part'], but it's not working.
I'm in a low-code pre-press environment (Esko Automation Engine), but the system gives me tools to parse an xPath, and throw some JavaScript at it.
There are at least three reasons your XPath selects nothing:
DPM is not an immediate child of the root node
There is only one DPM, so DPM[2] won't select anything
There is no child of a DPM whose name is cip4:Part.
You also say in the narrative that there are three DPart's, which implies that DPart is not actually the outermost element as it appears to be in your sample. This makes it difficult to provide the correct XPath. However, you might be able to make a start with
(//DPM)[2]//*[name()='cip4:Part']
Someone decided to make a site as unfriendly as possible by intention so I'm trying what I can to have our scraper still get to where it should.
<div class="issueDetails">
<div class="issueTitle ng-binding" style="">FANCY UNIQUE TEXT dd.MM.yyyy</div>
<a>COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TEXT</a>
I've left out the unnecessary details here, but I'm trying to find a match within the site through XPATH (can't use anything else for this) that will find something which fulfils both conditions, FANCY UNIQUE TEXT dd.MM.yyyy *as well as COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TEXT.
I've tried my luck with //div[#class='issueDetails']/descendant::*[contains(text(), 'FANCY UNIQUE TEXT dd.MM.yyyy') and contains (text(), 'COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TEXT')]
but it contains the erroneous logic that both unique things I need are in the same thing.
The first, FANCY UNIQUE TEXT, is the unique identifier for where I want to go. The second, COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TEXT, is what I need the scraper to click on to actually head to that specific one. So an XPath that finds both despite them being different descendants is necessary.
Is this what you're looking for :
//div[#class="issueDetails"]/*[contains(.,"COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TEXT") or translate(substring(.,string-length(.)-9,10),"123456789","000000000")="00.00.0000" and contains(.,'FANCY UNIQUE TEXT')]
It will return the 2 elements respecting your conditions : div and a.
Translate, substring-length and substring functions are used to check if a date pattern is present in the div element.
EDIT : Check if the parent+child contains the text you're looking for, then get the childs with :
//div[#class='issueDetails'][contains(.,"FANCY UNIQUE TEXT dd.MM.yyyy") and contains(.,"COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TEXT")]/*[contains(.,"FANCY UNIQUE TEXT dd.MM.yyyy") or contains(.,"COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TEXT")]
On this page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Seven#Episode_list
I have:
//*[text()='Reception']//preceding::th[contains(#id, 'ep')]//following::I
But it only registers following.
The default firepath selector is: .//*[#id='mw-content-text']/div/table[5]/tbody/tr/td[1]/I but this kind of selector is known to break quite frequently. Just wondering if there is a better way of doing this and I thought this might be a way.
Thanks!
:)
- You can see that it's getting stuff under the table which is not what I want :S
Try to use below XPath to match required elements:
//th[contains(#id, 'ep')]/following::I[./following::*[text()='Reception']]
This looks more simple
//tr[contains(#class, 'vevent')]//i
Don't overcomplicate things. You need I tag inside each row. So just find row locator tr[contains(#class, 'vevent')] and get it's I
Another good approach in case you want to check that inside of parent element is located some special element, but you want to find some 3rd element is to use such style: //element[./specific]//child , so in your case:
//tr[contains(#class, 'vevent')][./th[contains(#id,'ep')]]//i
so it's I tag inside row that contains #id,'ep' in header
I am using the page object Gem with Watir. During testing I found that I have a field that has the same contents that show in the same location but have separate unique ID's. The difference is before you get to the page.
I tried using Xpaths:
select_list(:selectionSpecial, :xpath => "//select[#id='t_id9' OR #id='t_id7']")
But was met with a script error.
They are static ID's but I want to force them into one variable since that would allow me to use "populate_page_with" feature.
I have a long winded way currently, but I am fishing for a more efficient way that works with the page object Features.
Does anyone know of a way to do this?
Your approach of using xpath can work. The problem is the syntax errors in the xpath selector. It should be:
"//select[#id='t_id9' or #id='t_id7']"
Note:
The start should be a // rather than a \
Using or is case-sensitive; it has to be lower case
There was also a missing closing ' for the first id attribute
Personally, I find css and xpath selectors harder to use. I would go with the id locator with a regex. The following gives the same results, but some will find it easier to read.
select_list(:selectionSpecial, :id => /^t_id(7|9)$/)
This may be a silly question, but is it possible to make a query using XPath without specifying the element name?
Normally I would write something like
//ElementName[#id = "some_id"]
But the thing is I have many (about 40) different element types with an id attribute and I want to be able to return any of them if the id fits. But I don't want to make this call for each type individually. Is it possible to search all of them at once, regardless of the name?
I am using this in an XQuery script, if that offers any help.
use * instead of name //*[#id = "some_id"]
It might be more efficient to look directly at the #id elements - //* will work, but will initially return every node in the document and then filter!
That may not matter in a small document, of course. but here's an alternative:
//#id[.="some_id"]/..